I 



HH WIHHMIIMTiimifitl 



JtiM 







THE 



PRACTICAL SHEPHERD: 



A COMPLETE TBEATISE ON THE 



BREEDING, MANAGEMENT AND DISEASES OF SHEEP. 



BY 



HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D., 

w. 

AUTHOR OF "SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH," " PINE-WOOL 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY," ETC., ETC. 



WITH ILLXISTR^TIOlSrS. 



SEVENTH EDITION. 




ROCHESTER, N". Y.: 

D. D. T. MOORE, UNION BUILDINGS. 

PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1863. 



SF'515 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 

D. D. T. MOORE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Northern District of New York. 



ROCHESTER, N. T.: 

STEREOTYPED BY JAMES LENNOX, 

62 BUFFALO STREET. 



Z i b 3 i 



INTRODUCTION. 



An attempt has been made in the following pages to give an 
impartial history of all the most valuable varieties and families of sheep 
in the United States, — to explain the principles of breeding on which, 
their improvement rests, and to describe their proper treatment 
in health and sickness, under the different climatic and other circum- 
stances to which they are necessarily subjected in a country aa 
extensive as our own. 

Many of the topics of this work have been ably discussed, and are 
constantly being ably discussed in our Agricultural periodicals ; but it 
is now eighteen years since the publication of the last elaborate 
American work which treats on them connectedly and with any 
considerable degree of fullness. It is fifteen years since the appearance 
of my own Sheep Husbandry in the South, which was confined to a 
portion of these subjects, and, in many instances, as the title would 
imply, to views and statements intended for local rather than general 
information. 

In the mean time, a great change — almost an entire revolution — 
has taken place in the character of American sheep, and in the systems 
of American sheep husbandry. The fine - wool families which existed 
here in 1845 have, under a train of circumstances which will be found 
recorded in this volume, mostly passed away; and they have been 
succeeded by a new family, developed in our own country, which calls 
for essentially different standards of breeding and modes of practical 
treatment. 

Our improved English, or, as they are often termed, mutton breeds 
of sheep, instead of being now confined to a few small, scattering 
flocks, have spread into every portion of our country, represent a large 
amount of agricultural capital, and throughout regions of considerable 
extent are more profitable than sheep kept specially for wool growing 
purposes. Some of the most valuable families of them were wholly 
unknown in this country — indeed, had scarcely been brought into 
general notice in England — fifteen years ago. And, finally, our 
advanced agricultural condition has created a new set of agricultural 
circumstances and interests which materially affect, and, in turn, are 
materially affected by, sheep husbandry, — so that their reciprocal 
relations must be understood to lead to the highest measure of success 
in almost any department of farming. 

In view of these facts, a new work on American Sheep Husbandry 
brought down to the requirements of the present day — that is, 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

embodying the results of the experience which sheep breeders have 
obtained down to the present time — is obviously called for. And the 
need is more urgent at a period when a great existing war has so 
raised the price of wool that multitudes are embarking in its production 
who have comparatively little knowledge of sheep or their management. 
This work is intended to be minute and explicit enough in regard to 
every detail of that management to meet the wants of the merest 
beginner. 

I would gladly have seen this labor performed by another. But, 
during the past year, repeated public and private intimations have 
continued to reach me from breeders, agricultural editors, etc., scattered 
through various States of this Union, and representing personal interests 
the most diversified and even contrary, that my preparation of such 
a work was considered desirable. In complying with the wishes thus 
expressed, I can only bring to my task experience, and a disposition 
to state facts with accuracy and candor. As has been remarked in 
another portion of this volume, I have owned and been familiar with 
flocks of sheep from my infancy, and have had the direct and practical 
charge and management of them, in considerable numbers, for a period 
exceeding thirty years. During that time I have bred all the varieties 
of the Merino which have been introduced into our country, and 
several of the leading families of English sheep. But not having bred 
the latter extensively, or very recently, I have thought it would be 
more satisfactory, in most instances, to employ descriptions of them 
drawn from standard English writers, and from their actual breeders 
in the United States. Had I contemplated writing this work long 
enough in advance to make a collection of materials specially intended 
for it, I should also have taken pleasure in drawing out the opinions 
of the eminent and highly successful breeders of English sheep in the 
Canadas. My inquiries might even have extended to England. But 
the "Practical Shepherd" was commenced as soon as the writing of 
it was determined on, and the earlier Chapters, treating on Breeds, 
were in print before I could have sought in an appropriate mode 
and obtained the desired information fiom foreign lands. 

When called upon to give the opinions of others in regard 
to points with which I am unacquainted, or less acquainted, I have 
chosen generally to quote their language, — and in all instances 
to mention their names. Disguised compilation is one of the pettiest 
forms of literary theft ; and it deprives the reader of his fair and 
proper privilege of deciding for himself on the competence of the 
authority to which he is called upon to give credit. On various 
subjects, and more especially on the subject of those ovine diseases 
which are as yet unknown in the United States, these pages will be 
found enriched with the descriptions and the opinions of eminent 
foreign agricultural writers and veterinarians. For the invaluable 
privilege of thus availing myself of their knowledge, I, as well as the 
readers of this volume, owe them sincere acknowledgements. 

I was at some loss whether or not it would be expedient for me 
to give descriptions of an extended list of diseases and remedies, the 
former of which have not appeared, or, at least, have not been 
recognized in our country. But judging from their increase thus far, 
and judging from their analogies derivable from the history of diseases 
in other domestic animals, and in man, we have strong reasons to 



INTRODUCTION. T 

apprehend that as our country grows older, and our systems of 
husbandry more artificial, the same causes will be generated or 
developed here which now produce many of the diseases of Europe 
It is already found, for example, that as we treat our English sheep 
according to English modes, maladies long known in England, but 
not previously known here, and not yet known among our other 
breeds of sheep, make their appearance among them. And some of 
the fellest ovine maladies of Europe are liable, at any time, to be 
introduced here by contagion. On the whole, I judged that it would 
be erring, if at all, on the safer side, to give descriptions drawn from 
the best existing sources of veterinary information of the symptoms 
and treatment of all the maladies unknown in this country whicr. 
have thus far been recognized and classified in Europe. 

I have quoted somewhat freely from my own previous works on 
Sheep. I could discover no objection to this, where my opinions 
remain unchanged; and where they are changed, omissions and, in a 
few cases, slight alterations have been made to conform the quoted 
statements to them. If occasional discrepancies are discoverable 
between my present and former views, I have only to say, in explana- 
tion, that further experience or further reflection has led me to change 
my conclusions. 

A general history and description of all the breeds of sheep have 
not been attempted in this volume. Those desirous of such information 
are referred to Mr. Youatt's "Work on Sheep. This unwearied 
investigator and copious writer exhausted this field of research — and 
he really left nothing, in what may be termed the literature of Sheep 
Husbandry, to be performed by another. Those who have followed 
him in the same field, have only repeated him ; and these compilers 
have generally been as destitute of his grace as of his erudition. 

I have alluded to all the distinct breeds of sheep which have, so 
far as my knowledge extends, been introduced into the United States, 
but I have particularly described only those leading and valuable ones 
which now employ the attention of enlightened agriculturists. And 
even in respect to these, no historic investigations have been indulged 
in which do not appear to me to have a direct bearing on the modes 
and means of their preservation or improvement. The province of 
this work embraces purely practical concerns, and history and 
disquisition are pertinent only so far as they throw a direct and 
instructive light on those concerns. 

One of the greatest and most insuperable difficulties which I 
have experienced in the prosecution of my labors arises from the 
want of an established and systematic nomenclature to express the 
various divisions of species. The designations, species, race, kind, 
stock, breed, variety, family, etc., have been applied almost indiscrimi- 
nately to the same divisions, as if the words were understood to be 
synonymous. Even Mr. Youatt falls into this loose and careless use 
of language. But unfortunately a confusion of terms can not but 
produce a corresponding confusion of ideas, on a subject not without 
intricacy, and in reference to distinctions or lines of demarkation 
which are frequently faint, and nearly always irregular and abounding 
in exceptions. The breeder who aspires to be an improver, ought to 
have clear ideas on this subject. Called upon early in the progress 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

of this work, and without much previous consideration, to devise a 
uniform mode of classification in the premises, I adopted and have 
made use of the following: 

The term breed is applied to those extensive and permanent groups 
of sheep which are believed to have. had, respectively, a common origin 
— which exhibit certain common leading characteristics — and which 
transmit those characteristics with uniformity to their progeny. Ex- 
amples of Breeds, are the Merino of Spain, including its pure blood 
descendants, wherever found; the Fat-Rumped Sheep of Asia, the 
Long -Wooled Sheep of England, and the Short - Wooled Sheep of 
England. The term Variety is applied to different national branches 
of the same breed, such as the Saxon, French and American varieties 
of the parent Spanish Merino. The term Family is used to designate 
those branches of a breed or variety found in the same country, which 
exhibit permanent, but ordinarily lesser differences than varieties. 
Thus the different kinds of Downs and the Rylands are families of 
the English Short - Wooled sheep ; the Cotswolds and the Liecesters 
are families of the English Long -Wooled sheep ; the Infantados and 
Paulars are families of both the Spanish and American Merinos. 
The term sub - family is occasionally used to designate a minor group, 
bearing about the same relation to a family that a family does to a 
variety. No satisfactory term was found to characterize the smallest 
and initial group of all, — those closely related animals, to which, 
among human beings, we apply the designation of a family, when we 
use that word in its most restricted sense. Perhaps I have sometimes, 
awkwardly enough, spoken of them as animals of the same individual 
blood, or as possessing the same strain of individual blood. 

The system of classification above described, answers very well 
•when applied to the Merino. This breed exhibits all the enumerated 
classes in permanent, distinct forms, each to a certain extent isolated 
from the others by separate breeding, for a considerable period, and 
totally isolated from all other and outside groups of sheep by perfect 
purity of blood. But this classification is wholly unsatisfactory when 
applied to the British breeds of sheep. I will not consume space to 
explain a fact, the causes of which will be so obvious to the observing 
reader. 

I return my sincere thanks to the following gentlemen for valuable 
aid in collecting materials for this work — none the less valuable 
because, in many instances, they were contributed in a form which 
required no special mention in my pages. I arrange the names 
alphabetically to avoid making a distinction where, in most cases, 
none exists : — A. B. Allen, Lewis F. Allen, George Campbell, N. L. 
Chaffee, Edmund Clapp, Prosper Elithorp, George Geddes, James 
Gecldes, W. F. Greer, James S. Grennell, Edwin Hammond, Benjamin 
P. Johnson, Geo. Livermore, R. A. Loveland, Daniel Necdham, Theo- 
dore C. Peters, Virtulan Rich, William R. Sanford, Nelson A. Saxton, 
Homer L. D. Sweet, Samuel Thome, and M. W. C. Wright. 

HENRY S. RANDALL. 
Cortland Village, N. Y., 
September, 1863. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FINE - WOOLED BREEDS OF SHEEP. 

The Spanish, French, Saxon, and Silesian Merinos, Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

INTRODUCTION OF FINE -WOOLED SHEEP INTO THE UNITED 

STATES. 

Early Importations of Spanish, French and Saxon Merinos, 22 

CHAPTER III. 

AMERICAN MERINOS ESTABLISHED AS A VARIETY. 

The Mixed Leonese or Jarvis Merinos — The Infantado or Atwood 
Merinos — The Paular or Rich Merinos — Other Merinos, 27 

CHAPTER IV. 

LATER IMPORTATIONS OF FINE - WOOLED SHEEP INTO THE 
UNITED STATES. 

French and Silesian Merinos Introduced, 35 

CHAPTER V. 

BRITISH AND OTHER LONG AND MIDDLE - WOOLED SHEEP IN 
THE UNITED STATES. 

Leicesters, Cotswolds, Lincolns, New Oxfordshires, Black -Faced 
Scotch, Cheviot, Fat-Runiped, Broad - Tailed, Persian and 
Chinese Sheep, 43 

CHAPTER VI. 

BRITISH SHORT - WOOLED SHEEP, ETC., IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The South Downs, Hampshire Downs, Shropshire Downs and 
Oxfordshire Downs, 55 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE POINTS TO BE REGARDED IN FINE - WOOLED SHEEP. 

Carcass — Skin — Folds or "Wrinkles — Fleece — Fineness — Even- 
ness — Trueness and Soundness — Pliancy and Softness — Style 
and Length of Wool, 68 

CHAPTER Vm. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

Yolk — Chemical Analysis of Yolk — Its Uses — Proper Amount 
and Consistency of it — Its Color — Coloring Sheep Artifi- 
cially — Artificial Propagation and Preservation of Yolk,. ... 77 

CHAPTER IX. 

ADAPTATION OF BREEDS TO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS. 

Markets — Climate — Vegetation — Soils — Number of Sheep to be 
Kept — Associated Branches of Husbandry, 83 

CHAPTER X. 

PROSPECTS AND PROFITS OF WOOL AND MUTTON PRODUCTION 
IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Page, 91 

CHAPTER XI. 

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

Page, i 101 

CHAPTER XII. 

BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 
Page, 116 

CHAPTER XIII. 

CROSS - BREEDING. 

Cross-Breeding the Merino and Coarse Breeds— Crossing Different 
Families of Merinos — Crossing Between English Breeds and 
Families — Recapitulation, 124 

CHAPTER XIV. 

SPRING MANAGEMENT. 

Catching and Handling— Turning Out to Grass— Tagging— Burs- 
Lambing— Proper Place for Lambing— Mechanical Assistance 
in Lambing — Inverted Womb — Management of New -Born 
Lambs — Artificial Feeding — Chilled Lambs — Constipation 
— Cutting Teeth — Pinning — Diarrhea or Purging, 139 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XV. 

SPRING MANAGEMENT CONTINUED. 

Congenital Goitre — Imperfectly Developed Lambs — Rheumatism 

— Treatment of the Ewe after Lambing — Closed Teats — 
Uneasiness — Inflamed Udder — Drying off — Disowning Lambs 

— Foster Lauibs — Docking Lambs — Castration, 153 

CHAPTER XVI. 

SUMMER MANAGEMENT. 

Mode of Washing Sheep — Utility of Washing Considered — Cutting 
the Hoofs — Time between Washing and Shearing — Shearing 

— Stubble Shearing and Trimming — Shearing Lambs and 
Shearing Sheep semi-annually — Doing up Wool — Frauds in 
Doing up Wool — Storing Wool — Place for Selling Wool — 
Wool Depots and Commission Stores — Sacking Wool, 163 

CHAPTER XVII. 

SUMMER MANAGEMENT CONTINUED. 

Drafting and Selection — Registration — Marking and Numbering 

— Storms after Shearing — Sun - Scald — Ticks — Shortening 
Horns — Maggots— Confining Rams — Training Rams — Fences 
— Salt — Tar, Sulphur, Alum, &c. — Water in Pastures — Shade 

in Pastures — Housing Sheep in Summer — Pampering, 17,* 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

FALL MANAGEMENT. 

Weaning and Fall Feeding Lambs — Sheltering Lambs in Fall — 
Fall Feeding and Sheltering Breeding Ewes — Selecting Ewes 
for the Ram — Coupling — Period of Gestation — Management 
of Rams during Coupling — Dividing Flocks for Winter, 198 

CHAPTER XIX. 

WINTER MANAGEMENT. 

Winter Shelter — Temporary Sheds — Hay Barns with Open Sheds 

— Sheep Barns or Stables — Cleaning out Stables in Winter — 
Yards — Littering Yards — Confining Sheep in Yards and to 
Dry Feed 211 

CHAPTER XX. 

WINTER MANAGEMENT CONTINUED. 

Hay Racks — Water for Sheep in Winter — Amount of Food 
Consumed by Sheep in Winter — Value of Different Fodders 
— Nutritive Equivalents — Mixed Feeds — Fattening Sheep in 

Winter — Regularity in Feeding — Salt, 230 

1* 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PEAIRIE SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 

Prairie Management in Summer — Lambing — Folds and Dogs — 
Stables — Herding — "Washing — Shearing — Storing and Sell- 
ing Wool — Ticks — Prairie Diseases — Salt — Weaning Lambs 
— Prairie Management in Winter — Winter Feed — Sheds or 
Stables — Water — Location of Sheep Establishment, 248 

CHAPTER XXII. 

ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF SHEEP. — THE HEAD. 

Comparatively small Number of American Sheep Diseases — Low 
Type of American Sheep Diseases — Anatomy of the Sheep 
— The Skeleton — The Skull — The Horns and their Diseases 
— The Teeth — Swelled Head — Sore Face — Swelled Lips — 
Inflammation of the Eye, 261 

CHAPTER XXni. 

ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE SHEEP'S HEAD, CONTINUED. 

Section of Sheep's Head — Grub in the Head — Hydatid on the 
Brain — Water on the Brain — Apoplexy — Inflammation of 
the Brain — Tetanus or Locked -Jaw — Epilepsy — Palsy — 
Rabies, 273 

CHAPTER XXTV. 

DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 

Blain — Obstructions of the Gullet — The Stomachs and their 
Diseases — External and Internal Appearance of the Stomachs 
— The Mode of Administering Medicines into the Stomachs 
of Sheep — Hoove — Poisons — Inflammation of the Rumen, 
or Paunch — Obstruction of the Maniplus — Acute Dropsy, 
or Red -Water — Enteritis, or Inflammation of the Coats of 
the Intestines — Diarrhea — Dysentery — Constipation — Colic, 
or Stretches — Braxy, or Inflammation of the Bowels — Worms 
—Pining, 291 

CHAPTER XXV. 

DISEASES OF THE CIRCULATORY AND THE RESPIRATORY 

SYSTEMS. 

The Pulse — Place and Mode of Bleeding — Fever — Inflammatory 
Fever — Malignant Inflammatory Fever — Typhus Fever — 
Catarrh — Malignant Epizootic Catarrh — Pneumonia, or Inflam- 
mation of the Lungs — Pleuritis or Pleurisy — Consumption,.. 314 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE AND URINARY ORGANS. 

Abortion — Inversion of the Womb — Garget — Parturient, or 
Puerperal Fever — Cystitis, or Inflammation of the Bladder,. . 329 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

DISEASES OF THE SKIN. 

The Scab — Erysipelatous Scab — Wild fire and Ignis Sacer — 
Other Cutaneous Eruptions — Small Pox, or Variola Ovina,.. 338 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

DISEASES OP THE LOCOMOTIVE ORGANS. 

Fractures — Rheumatism — Disease of the Biflex Canal — Gravel 

— Travel -Sore — Lameness from Frozen Mud — Fouls — Hoof- 
Rot, ■. 354 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

OTHER DISEASES, WOUNDS, ETC. 

The Rot — Scrofula — Hereditary Diseases — Cuts — Lacerated and 
Contused Wounds — Punctured Wounds — Dog Bites — Poisoned 
Wounds — Sprains — Bruises — Abscess, 372 

CHAPTER XXX. 

LIST OF MEDICINES. 

Page, 383 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE DOG IN ITS CONNECTION WITH SHEEP. 

The Injuries inflicted by Dogs on Sheep —The Sheep Dog — The 
Spanish Sheep Dog — The Hungarian Sheep Dog — The 
French Sheep Dog — The Mexican Sheep Dog — The South 
American Sheep Dog — Other Large Races of Sheep Dogs 

— The English Sheep Dog— The Scotch Sheep Dog, or Colley 

— Accustoming Sheep to Dogs, 393 



APPENDICES. 

A. — Origin of the Improved Infantados, 412 

B. — Origin of the Improved Paulars, 416 

C. — English Experiments in Feeding Sheep, 418 

D.— Sheep and Product of Wool in United States, 425 

E. — Starting a Sheep Establishment in the New Western States, 427 

F — Climate of Texas, 428 

G. — Proportion of Meat to Wool in Sheep of Different Ages, 

Sexes and Sizes, 433 

H. — The American Merinos at the International Exhibition of 

1863, 438 

List of Illustrations, 440 

Index, 441 



THE PRACTICAL SHEPHERD. 



CHAPTER I. 

FINE-WOOLED BEEEDS OP SHEEP. 

THE SPANISH, FRENCH, SAXON AND SILESIAN MERINOS. 

The Spanish Merino. — From a period anterior to the 
Christian era, fine-wooled Sheep abounded in Spain, and they 
were, or gradually ripened into, a breed distinct in its 
characteristics from all other breeds in the world. It was, 
however, divided into provincial varieties which exhibited 
considerable differences ; and these were subdivided into great 
permanent cabanas or flocks which being kept distinct from 
each other and subjected to special courses of breeding, 
assumed the character of separate families.varying somewhat, 
but in a lesser degree, from each other. 

The first division recognized in Spain was into Transhu- 
mantes or traveling flocks and Estantes or stationary flocks. 
The first were regarded as the most valuable and were 
owned by the king and some of the principal nobles and 
clergy. They were pastured in winter on the plains of 
Southern Spain, and driven in spring (commencing the 
journey in April,) to the fresh green herbage of the mountains 
in Northern Spain. They began their return early in October. 
The route, each way, averaged about four hundred miles and 
was completed in six weeks. Through inclosed regions and 
where the feed was scarce, they often traveled from fifteen to 
twenty miles a day. The lambs were dropped early in 
January. Nearly half of them, and sometimes in seasons of 
bad pasturage, three-fourths of them were destroyed as soon 
as yeaned, and those which were preserved were usually 
suckled by two ewes. This was intended for the benefit of 



14 6PANISH FAMILIES. 

both lambs and ewes. The latter were thought to produce 
more wool than when each suckled a lamb. The lambs were 
little over three months old when the spring migration 
commenced, and about nine months old when the autumnal 
one commenced. Thus every year of its life the migratory 
Merino performed a journey of eight hundred miles, and 
passed nearly a fourth of the entire time on the road. It 
received neither shelter nor artificial food. Such a training 
constantly weeded out of the flock the old, the feeble and the 
weak in constitution, and developed among those which 
remained capabilities for enduring exertion and hardship to 
an extraordinary degree. 

Some of the most esteemed families of migratory Merinos 
are thus mentioned by Lasteyrie: — "The Escurial breed is 
supposed to possess the finest wool of all the migratory sheep. 
The Gaudeloupe have the most perfect form, and are likewise 
celebrated for the quantity and quality of their wool. The 
Paulars bear much wool of a fine quality ; but they have a 
more evident enlargement behind the ears, and a greater 
degree of throatiness, and their lambs have a coarse, hairy 
appearance, which is succeeded by excellent wool. The 
lambs of the Infantados have the same hairy coat when 
young. The Negretti are the largest and strongest of all the 
Spanish traveling sheep." 

Vague and unsatisfactory as is this description, it is 
perhaps the best contemporaneous one extant, of that period 
near the opening of the present century when the flocks of 
Spain had reached their highest point of excellence — and 
before invasion and civil war had led to their sale into foreign 
countries and their almost general destruction or dispersion 
at home. I am inclined to think that the small pains taken 
by Lasteyrie and his contemporaries to point out the distinc- 
tions between the best Spanish families, — the "Leonesa" as 
they were collectively called — resulted from the fact, that the 
foreign breeders of that day, and the Spaniards themselves, 
attached but little importance to those distinctions in respect 
to value — though in respect to breeding they were rigorously 
preserved. 

To furnish the reader with some data for comparison 
between the several Spanish families and their American 
descendants, I select the following facts from a table prepared 
by Petri, an intelligent and highly trustworthy writer, who 
visited Spain near the beginning of this century on purpose 
to examine its Sheep ; and I add some measurements of 



SPANISH FLEECES. 



15 



American Merinos made of Sheep in no wise extraordinary 
in their forms.* 





to 

a 


"3 

o 


2 m 




o 








So 


in 

§ 

o 




13 


Bm 


a 


ao!?* 


a 




o 


•O 


a, 


NAMES OF FLOCKS. 


.5-3* 

o 








"3 




"*"* 00 

o » 


£1 

<— 
o 


O O4 




% 




a 
-3 


5 °° 
"So 

s 

1-1 


5 » 

a 

9 

Hi 


is 
a? 


s 

a 
w 

o 


1 


2 



c 
a 

ao 

3 



Nkgbbtti. 

Ram '. 

Ewe 

Infantado. 

Ram... 

Ewe 

Guadeloupe. 

Ram 

Ewe 

ESTANTES OF SlERKA DE SojttO 

Ram... 

Ewe 

Small Estantes. 

Ram 

Ewe 

Amebican Merino. 

Ram 

Ewe 

Ewe 

Ewe — 



lbs. 
97 
67 

100% 
70 

97% 
69 

96% 
62> 2 

42 
30 

122 
114 
122 
100 



95, 



ft. in. 
1 7 
1 5 

1 6 

1 6% 



1 3 
1 1 

10 
10 
10 

11 



ft. in 
2 2 
2 1 

2 3 
2 1 



ft. in 
4 6% 
4 2% 

4 7 
4 3% 

4 5 

3 11 



1 9 

1 6 

2 4 
2 4 
2 5 
2 3 



3 7% 
3 2 

3 11 

3 11% 

4 
3 11 



ft. in 
4 IK 
4 1% 

4 2 

3 11 

4 5% 

3 9 

4 2% 
3 10 

3 2 
2 10 

4 4% 
4 1% 

4 3 

4 0% 



ft. in 
1 3 
1 1 

1 
1 

1 

10% 

1 

11 

10 



11 
11 

9 

8% 



S} 2 



in. 

6 

4% 

6 

5% 



These weights and measures, except those of the American 
sheep, are Austrian. The Austrian pound is equal to 1.037 
pounds avoirdupois; the Austrian foot to 1.234 English feet. 

The fleece of the Spanish Merino was level on the surface 
and so dense that, like that of its American descendant, it 
opposed a firm resistance when grasped by the hand, instead 
of* yielding under the fingers like fur, hair, or the thin wool of 
other races of sheep. The wool was shorter than that of the 
improved American Merino and particularly so on the belly, 
legs and head. It was very even in quality, both as between 
different sheep and on different parts of the same sheep. The 
most celebrated flocks, with the exception of the Escurial, 
were dark colored externally — about as dark as the present 
Merino sheep in our own Middle and Western States, which 
are not housed in summer. The wool was rendered moist to 



* They were taken from my flock, and the measurements, &c, made in December, 
1861. The ewes were a little over average size, but the ram was quite small. His 
usual weight immediately after shearing is but 100 pounds. 1 selected him more 
particularly to exhibit another contrast, with the Spanish Sheep. His unwashed 
fleece of a single year's growth has reached 21 lbs. and averages about 20 lbs. " 21 
per cent.," as he is called, was bred by Edwin Hammond, Esq., of Middlebury, Vt. 



16 SrANISH WOOL. 

the feci, brilliant and heavy, by yolk, btit it did not exhibit 
this in viscid or indurated masses within, or in a black, pitchy 
coating without. It opened with a fine, flashing luster, and 
with a yellowish tinge which deepened toward its outer ends. 

Livingston gives the weight of the unwashed Spanish 
fleeces at 8£ lbs. in the ram and 5 lbs. in the ewe. Youatt 
places the weight of the ram's fleece half a pound lower. The 
King of England's flock of Negretti's, about one hundred in 
number, which were picked sheep and included some wethers 
(but no rams,) yielded, during five years, an annual average 
of a little over 3| lbs. of brook -washed wool per head, and 
each fleece afterwards lost about a pound in scouring.* 

Youatt measured the diameter of the wool of the various 
flocks first introduced from Spain into England. I judge 
from his statements that 1-750 part of an inch may be assumed 
as about the average diameter or fineness of the good Spanish 
wool of that period. The same ingenious investigator 
discovered that conformation of the fibers which causes the 
felting property. It is produced by "serrations," as he terms 
them, — tooth-like projections on the wool, all pointing in a 
direction from the root to the point, and so inconceivably 
minute that 2560 of them occur in the space of an inch of the 
fiber. They are more numerous in proportion to the fineness 
of the wool, and on their number, regularity and sharpness 
depends the perfection of the felting property. In this 
respect the finest grades of Merino wool exceed all others. 
The following cuts give the magnified appearance of a fine 
specimen of Spanish wool, viewed both as an opaque and 
transparent object. 




These tooth-like processes are still finer on choice speci" 
mens of Saxon wool ; on that of the coarse-wooled varieties 
of sheep they are comparatively few, blunt and irregular. 

The best flocks of Spain, as already mentioned, were lost 
to that country during the Peninsular war. In answer to an 
application for information from T. S. Humrickhouse, Esq., of 



* See Sir Joseph Banks' five annual reports, from 1798 to 1802, in respect to 
this flock. The number of wethers is not given by him. 

f 



PRESENT SPANISH MERINOS. 17 

Ohio, made with a view to importations and directed to the 
Spanish Minister in Washington, in 1852, that functionary- 
caused inquiry to be made in relation to the existing condition 
of the flocks of Spain. The statements sent back, in 1854, 
appear to have been derived from the Spanish " General 
Association of Wool Growers." The substance of them is 
condensed into the following paragraph : 

"Although it is certain that, in the war of Independence, 
a great number of the said flocks, [the choice Transhumantes 
of Estremadura and Leon, such as the Infantado, Paular, 
Guadeloupe, Negretti, Escurial, Montarco, etc.,] were de- 
stroyed, and others diminished and divided, it is equally 
certain that they still exist in their majority and with the 
same good qualities which formerly made them so desirable 
and necessary. If, therefore, as it appears from the commu- 
nication which has given rise to this report, the wool growers 
of the United States should have a desire and want to 
purchase fine sheep, they may come sure they will not be 
disappointed." 

Then follows an extended list of flocks with the names of 
their owners.* The Escurial, the Negretti and the Arriza, 
are the only ones admitted to have been lost. 

Conceding to these statements the merit of entire candor, 
they simply show that the Spaniards place a very different 
estimate on their present sheep from that placed on them by 
American breeders. The late John A. Taintor, Esq., o, 
Connecticut, who seven times visited Europe to buy sheepf 
carefully examined the flocks of Spain with an earnest wish 
to find superior animals in them for importation to the United 
States. He wrote to me in 1862, that the Spanish sheep 
" were so small, neglected and miserable, that he would not 
take one of them as a present."f In 1860 a gentleman of 
Estremadura, whose flock Mr. Taintor could not visit when 
in Spain, sent him a number of fleeces as samples; and one of 
these Mr. Taintor forwarded to me. It weighed, in the dirt, 
5 lbs. 11 oz. The wool was about as long as ordinaiy 
American Merino wool, was not very even in quality, and 
was scarcely middling in point of fineness! Mr. William 
Chamberlain, of Red Hook, New York, the well known 



♦Scarcely any of these are the ancient owners, or those who held the flocks 
when the war "of Independence" commenced. 

t See his letter to me in my Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry in Transactions 
of N. Y. State Agricultural Society for 1861. (The Report was made early in 1862 
and will hereafter be cited as of that year.) 



18 THE FRENCH MERINO. 

importer of Silcsian Merinos, informs me th.it he imported 
about thirty Merinos from Spain, a few years since, and that 
after seeing them and shearing them he quietly sold them in 
the ensuing autumn to the butcher! William R. Sanford, of 
Orwell, Vermont, a Merino sheep breeder of great judgment 
and experience, visited the flocks of Spain, France and 
Germany, in 1851, in behalf of himself, Mr. Hammond and 
some other gentlemen of the same State, to ascertain whether 
fine-wooled sheep superior to those of the United States could 
be found in Europe. He thus wrote to me in respect to the 
sheep of Spain: 

* * * " On arriving at Madrid I found that most 
of those who owned sheep to any amount lived in the city, 
and through our Minister I got introductions to them. From 
what I could learn from them in regard to the form, weight 
of fleece, etc, of their sheep, I became satisfied that they had 
none of much value. They finally admitted that they were 
not as good as formerly, and that they were going to 
Germany for bucks to improve them. I concluded, however, 
I would go and see for myself. It is about 200 miles from 
Madrid to the plains of Estremadura, where they winter their 
sheep. On examining the flocks, I found they had no fixed 
character. Occasionally there would be a fair looking sheep. 
At first they pretended that their sheep were pure and the 
best in the world. But when they found that I understood the 
history of their flocks, and what I wanted, they admitted they 
were not as good as the former ones, and they gave as a 
reason that they had no standard flocks to resort to as they 
had before the French invasion, — at which time those 
standard flocks were all broken up, those which were not 
eaten, being sold and mixed with the common sheep of the 
country, which were a very inferior kind. I did not see a 
sheep in Spain that I would pay freight on to this country. I 
do not believe they have any that are of pure blood." 

I have conversed with several other American sheep 
breeders who have visited the Spanish flocks within the last 
fifteen years, and all of them substantially concur in the 
opinions above expressed. 

The French Merino. — After several successful smaller 
experiments in acclimating the Spanish Merino in France, 
about 300 of them were imported under royal auspices to that 
country in 1786. Gilbert, a French writer of reputation, in a 



THE FRENCH MEEINO. 19 

report made to the National Institute of France, ten years 
afterwards, thus speaks of them : 

"The stock from which the flock of Rambouillet was 
derived, was composed of individuals beautiful beyond any 
that had ever before been brought from Spain; but having 
been chosen from a great number of flocks, in different parts 
of the kingdom, they were distinguished by very striking 
local differences, which formed a medley disagreeable to the 
eye, but immaterial as it affected their quality. These 
characteristic differences have melted into each other, by 
their successive alliances, and from thence has resulted a race 
which perhaps resembles none of those which composed the 
primitive stock, but which certainly does not yield in any 
circumstance to the most beautiful in point of size, form and 
strength, or in the fineness, length, softness, strength and 
abundance of fleece. * * * The comparison I have 
made with the most scrupulous attention, between this wool 
and the highest priced of that drawn from Spain, authorizes 
me to declare that of Rambouillet superior." 

Lasteyrie thus gives their weight of fleeces, unwashed, 
through a series of years: — In 1796, 6 lbs. 9 oz.; 1797, 8 lbs.; 
1793, 7 lbs.; 1799, 8 lbs.; 1800, 8 lbs.; 1801, 9 lbs. 1 oz. In 
1802, he says: — "The medium weight of full grown nursing 
ewes' fleeces was 8 lbs. 7 oz.; of the ewes of three years old, 
which had no lambs, 9 lbs. 13 oz.; and two-tenths [grade] 
ewes, 10 lbs. 8 oz." 

Mr. Trimmer, an English flock-master and writer of ex- 
perience, thus described them in 1827 : 

" The sheep, in size, are certainly the largest pure Merinos 
I have ever seen. The wool is of various qualities, many 
sheep carrying very fine fleeces, others middling, and some 
rather indifferent ; but the whole is much improved from the 
quality of the original Spanish Merinos. In carcass and 
appearance I hesitate not to say they are the most unsightly 
flock of the kind I ever met with. The Spaniards entertained 
an opinion that a looseness of skin under the throat, and other 
parts, contributed to the increase of fleece. This system the 
French have so much enlarged on that they have produced, in 
this flock, individuals with dewlaps almost down to the knees, 
and folds of skin on the neck, like frills, covering nearly the 
head. Several of these animals seem to possess pelts of such 
looseness of size that one skin would nearly hold the carcasses 
of two such sheep. The pelts are particularly thick, which is 
unusual in the Merino sheep. The rams' fleeces were stated 



20 THE SAXON MERINO. 

at 14 lbs., and the ewes' 10 lbs., in the grease. By washing 
they would be reduced half, thus giving V and 5 lbs. each." 

But the royal flock was already beginning to be out- 
stripped by private ones in size of carcass and weight of 
fleeoe, and now there are a very few choice flocks in France 
which are said to average 1 4 lbs. of unwashed wool to the 
fleece in ewes, and from 20 lbs. to 24 lbs. in rams, the ewes 
weighing 150 lbs. and the rams 200 lbs. 

The Saxon Merino. — In 1765, three hundred Merinos 
18 were introduced from Spain into Saxony. They, too, were a 
royal importation, and were placed in government establish- 
ments. It is understood they were selected principally if not 
exclusively from the Escurial cabana. 

The course of breeding and management generally adopted 
in that country tended to develop a very high quality of wool 
at the expense of its quantity and at the expense of both car- 
cass and constitution. The sheep were not only housed during 
the winter, but at night, during all rainy weather, and 
generally from the noonday sun in summer. They were not 
even allowed to run on wet grass. Their food was accurately 
portioned out to them in quantity and in varying courses; 
their stable arrangements were systematic and included a 
multitude of careful manipulations ; at yeaning time they 
received (and came to require) about as much care as human 
patients. 

When introduced into the United States (1824,) the Saxon 
lacked from a fifth to a quarter of the weight of the parent 
Spanish stock in the country, and the latter were materially 
smaller then than now. Their forms indicated a far feebler 
constitution than those of the Spanish sheep. They Ave re 
slimmer, finer boned, taller in proportion, and thinner in the 
head and neck, — and shorter, thinner, finer and evener in the 
fleece. The wool had no hardened yolk internally or externally; 
was white externally ; and opened white instead of having the 
buff tinge of the unwashed Spanish wool. It was from an inch 
to an inch and a half long on the back and sides and shorter 
on the head, legs and belly. Medium specimens of it 
measured about 1-840 parts of an inch in diameter. The 
washed fleeces on an average weighed from l£ lbs. to 2 lbs. 
in ewes, and from 2 lbs. to 3 lbs. in rams. There has been a 
regeneration and improvement of this variety in various parts 
of Germany, but an account of these changes would possess 
little interest for the mass of practical American breeders. 



THE SILESIAN MERINO. 21 

The Silesian Merino. — Prussian Silesia has numerous 
flocks of sheep descended from the Electoral and other Saxon 
flocks. These require no separate mention here. An impor- 
tation of a different family of Merinos has been made from 
that country to the United States, and they have acquired, 
here, the distinctive appellation of Silesian Merinos. These 
will be described when an account is given of the importations 
of foreign fine-wooled sheep into the United States. 



CHAPTER H. 

INTBODUOTION OF ITNE-WOOLED SHEEP INTO THE 
UNITED STATES. 

EARLY IMPORTATIONS OP SPANISH, FRENCH AND SAXON 
MERINOS. 

Spanish Merinos Introduced. — Wm. Foster, of Boston, 
Massachusetts, imported three Merino sheep from Spain into 
that city in 1793. They were given to a friend, who killed 
them for mutton! In 1801 M. Dupont de Nemours, and a 
French banker named Delessert, sent four ram lambs to the 
United States. All perished on the passage but one, which 
was used for several years in New York, and subsequently 
founded some excellent grade flocks for his owner, E. I. 
Dupont, near Wilmington, Delaware. He was of fine form, 
weighed 138 lbs., and yielded 8£ lbs. of brook-washed 
wool, — the heaviest fleece borne by any of the early imported 
Merinos of which I have seen any account.* The same year, 
Seth Adams, of Zanesville, Ohio, imported into Boston a pair 
of Spanish sheep which had been brought from Spain into 
France. I know nothing of their later history. In 1802, Mr. 
Livingston, American Minister in France, sent home two 
pairs of French Merinos, purchased from the Government 
flock at Chalons. The rams appear from their recorded 
weights to have been larger than Spanish rams, but a picture 
of one of them which is extant exhibits no difference of form, 
and I have always learned from those who saw them, that 
they bore no resemblance to the modern French Merinos. 
Mr. Livingston subsequently imported a French ram from the 
Rambouillet flock. This eminent public benefactor was too 
much engrossed in a multitude of great undertakings to give 

* As Dupont de Nemours "was the head of the Commission appointed by the 
French Government to 6elect in Spain the flocks of Merinos given up by the latter by 
the Treaty of Basle, I conjecture that this ram was from the original Spanish, and 
not from the French stock. 



IMPORTATIONS OF SPANISH SHEEP. 23 

that close individual attention to his sheep which is necessary 
to marked success in breeding. But his statements show that 
he improved them considerably. 

The following table in respect to his sheep in 1810, 1 take 
from a manuscript letter of his, not before published. As the 
weights given both of carcasses and fleeces considerably 
exceed those of the previous year (published in his Essay on 
Sheep, p. 186,) it is probable that the sheep had been highly 
kept. The wool was unwashed. 

Stock rams. Weight. Weight of fleece. 

One, 6 years old, 146 lbs. 9 lbs imported from Rambouille. 

" 2 years old, 146 lbs. 9 lbs raised here. 

" 1 year old, 145 lbs. 11 lbs. 11 oz. raised here. 

Ewes. Average weight of fleece. 

Common (268) 3 lbs. 10 oz. 

Half-breed, or first cross, 5 lbs. 1 oz. 

Three-fourths, or second cross, 5 lbs, 3 oz., heaviest fleece, 8 lbs. 

Seven-eighths, or third cross, 5 lbs. 6 oz. do. 8 lbs. 4 oz. 

Full-blood, 5 lbs. 13 oz. do. 8 lbs. 12 oz. 

His half-blood wool sold for 75 cents ; three-fourths for 
$1.25; seven-eighths for $1.50; full-blood for $2.00. He sold 
four full-blood ram lambs for $4,000 ; fourteen fifteen-sixteenths 
blood do. for $3,500; twenty seven-eighths blood do. for $2,000; 
thirty three-fourths blood do. for $900. He says if the lambs 
had been a year old they would have sold 50 per cent, higher.* 

Later in the year 1802 Col. Humphreys, the American 
Minister in Spain, brought home with him 21 rams and 70 
ewes bought for him in that country. I find no definite early 
statistics of the flock, though in manuscript letters of Col. H. 
seen by me, he states that they constantly improved in 
weight of fleece and in carcass. He mentions as worthy of 
note that a ram raised on his fann yielded 7 lbs. 5 oz. of 
washed wool. The reputation of his flock, handed down by 
tradition, is an excellent one. Various facts which I cannot 
occupy space to give in detail, have led me to the undoubting 
conclusion that it was entirely from the Infantado cabana or 
family, and that it was selected from the best sheep of that 
family. 

A gentleman of Philadelphia imported two pair of black 
Merinos in 1803, and Mr. Muller, a small number from Hesse 
Cassel, in 1807.f In 1809, and 1810 Mr. Jarvis, American 



* This letter will appear entire in the Transactions of the New York State 
Agricultural Society for 1862. 

t These crossed with Col. Humphreys' sheep, in the flock of Mr. Wm. Caldwell of 
Philadelphia, were the origin of the formerly highly celebrated flocks of Wells & 
Dickinson, of Ohio. 



24 PRICES OF WOOL. 

Consul at Lisbon, Portugal, taking advantage of the offers of 
the Spanish Junto to sell the confiscated flocks of certain 
Spanish nobles, bought and shipped to different ports in the 
United States, about three thousand eight hundred and fifty- 
sheep. About one thousand three hundred of these were 
Aqueirres, two hundred Escurials and two hundred Montarcos. 
The remainder consisted of Paulars and Negrettis — mostly 
of the former.* 

Mr. Jarvis very unfortunately crossed his own flock with 
the Saxons, when the latter were introduced, but he dis- 
covered his error in time to correct it, and bred a pure 
Spanish flock to the period of his death. But he mixed his 
different Spanish families together, consisting of about half 
Paulars, a quarter Aqueirres, and the other fourth Escurials, 
Negrettis and Montarcos.J He stated to me that the average 
weight of fleece in his full-blood Merino flock, before his 
Saxon cross, was about 4 lbs.§ This I suppose included rams' 
and wethers' fleeces. The subsequent history of these sheep 
will again be referred to. From 3,000 to 5,000 Spanish 
Merinos were imported into the United States by other persons 
in 1809, 1810, and 1811. 

The earlier importations had attracted little notice until 
the commencement of our commercial difficulties with England 
and France, in 1807. When the embargo was imposed, that 
year, wool rose to $1 a pound. In 1809 and 1810 Mr. 
Livingston sold his full-blood wool, unwashed, for $2 a pound. 
During the war of 1812, it rose to $2.50 a pound. Many of 
the imported Merino rams sold for $1,000 apiece, and we 
have seen that Mr. Livingston sold ram lambs of his own 
raising at that price. Ewes sometimes sold for equal sums. 
The Peace of Ghent (1815,) re-opened commerce and over- 
threw our infant manufactories. Such a revulsion ensued that 
before the close of the year full-blood Merino sheep were sold 
for $1 a head ! Wool did not materially rally in price for the 
nine succeeding years, and during that period most of the 
full-blood flocks of the country were broken up or adulterated 
in blood. 



* See Mr. Jarvis' letter to me, in 1841, in New York Agricultural Society's Trans- 
actions of that year. 

t See his letter to me on this subject in 1844, published that year in the Albany 
Cultivator and New York Agriculturist. 

§ Mr. Jarvis gives the facts more precisely in a letter to L. A. Morrell, published in 
American Shepherd, p. 390. He says :— From 1811 to 1826, when I began to cross with 
the Saxonies, my average weight of wool was 3 lbs. 14 oz. to 4 lbs. 2 oz.— varying 
according to keep. The weight of the bucks was from 5>i lbs. to 6>» lbs. in good 
stock case, all washed on the sheeps' backs." 



SAXON MERTNOS INTRODUCED. 25 

Saxon Merinos Introduced. — The woolen tariff enacted 
in 1824, gave a new impulse to the production of fine-wool, 
and during that and the four succeeding years Saxon Merinos 
were imported in large numbers into the United States. A 
detailed history of these importations was embodied in a 
report on sheep which I made to the New York State 
Agricultural Society hi 1838,* the facts in regard to the 
Saxons being furnished to me by another member of the 
committee, Henry D. Grove, the leading German importer 
and breeder of that variety of sheep in our country. That 
history having been republished in the "American Shepherd," 
in "Sheep Husbandry in the South," and in various other 
publications, it is scarcely necessary to take up space here 
with its curious particulars concerning a variety now pretty 
generally discarded in our country. Suffice it to say, that 
the most enormous frauds were practiced ; grade sheep were 
mixed with nearly every importation; and these miserable 
animals brought along with them scab and hoof-rot, those dire 
scourges of the ovine race. 

The great discrimination made in favor of fine-wool by 
the tariff of 1828, excited a mania for its production, and 
every producer strove to obtain the finest, almost regardless 
of every other consideration. Size, weight of fleece, and 
constitution were totally overlooked. Yet the grower was 
feeding on hope. Fine-wool did not rise to a high price until 
after the middle of 1830, and neither then nor at any subse- 
quent period did the average price of Saxon exceed that of 
Spanish wool by more than ten cents a pound — while at least 
a third more of the latter could be obtained from the same 
number of sheep,f or the same amount of feed. When we 
consider this fact, and consider the superiority of the Spanish 
sheep in every other particular except fineness of wool, we 
cannot sufficiently wonder that from 1824 to 1840 the Saxons 
should have received universal preference, have sold for vastly 
higher prices, and that those who owned Spanish sheep, 
should have in almost every instance made haste to cross them 
with their small and comparatively worthless competitors. 

In about 1840, however, a reaction commenced, and the 
tariff of 1846, (which established an even ad valorem duty of 

* Published in Albany Cultivator, March, 1838, and partially in the New York 
State Agricultural Society's Transactions, 1841. 

tMr. Grove's flock of picked breeding sheep — not excelled probably in the 
United States among pure bloods, for weight of fleece — yielded an average of 2 lbs. 
11 ©z. per head of washed wool in 1840, and he published this product as a proof of 
the superior value of his favorite variety. See his letter to me, Transactions New 
York State Agricultural Society, 1841, p. 333. 

2 



2G SAXON MERINOS INTRODUCED. 

30 per centum on all wools and on cloths,) completed the 
overthrow of the Saxons. 




SAXON RAM. 

The cut of the Saxon ram above given, is copied from an 
engraving from a drawing by Mr. Charles L. Fleischmann, 
formerly draughtsman for the Patent Office. The engraving 
was published in the Patent Office Report of 1847. Mr. 
Fleischmann states that it is an accurate representation of the 
best ram of Von Thaer (son of the celebrated Albert Von 
Thacr,) made by its owner's permission at Moeglin, in 1844- 
'45. The flocks of Von Thaer are among the best and most 
highly improved in Germany. The drawing was made in the 
beginning of the month of August while the fleece was yet 
short. 



CHAPTER III. 

AMEKICAN MEKINOS ESTABLISHED AS A VAEIETT. 

THE MIXED LEONESE OR JARVIS MERINOS THE INF ANT ADO 

OR ATWOOD MERINOS THE PAULAR OR RICH MERINOS 

OTHER MERINOS. 

The Mixed Leonese or Jarvis Merinos. — The origin 
of Mr. Jarvis' flock has been given. Their pedigrees rested 
on his own direct statements ; and his integrity and veracity 
were never challenged by friend or foe. As has been seen, he 
mixed five families of Spanish sheep, the Paulars considerably 
predominating in numbers, — but his son writes me that for 
the purpose of "accommodating the manufacturers" he bred 
" in the contrary direction " from the type of the darker 
colored and yolkier families.* The appearance of his sheep 
when I first saw them, something over twenty years since, I 
thought plainly indicated that he had "accommodated the 
manufacturers" by chiefly using rams of his Escurial family 
or which bore a large proportion of that blood. They were 
lighter colored than the original Spanish sheep of other 
fiunilies and their wool was finer. It was entirely free from 
hardened yolk, or "gum," internally and externally, and 
opened on a rosy skin with a style and brilliancy which 
resembled the Saxon. It was longish, for those times, on the 
back and sides, but shorter on the belly, and did not cover the 
head and legs anything like as well as those parts are covered 
in the improved sheep of the present day. It was of fair 
medium thickness on the best animals. The form was perhaps 
rather more compact than that of the original Spanish sheep, 
but altogether it bore a close resemblance to them. I think 
that prior to 1840, Mr. Jarvis had begun to breed back 
toward the other strains of blood in his flock. At about 
that period small and choice lots of breeding ewes were 



* See Charles Jarvis' letter to me in my report on " Fine- Wool Sheep Husbandry," 
1862. 



28 THE AMERICAN WFANTADOfi. 

occasionally obtained from him which yielded from 4 lbs. to 
4} lbs. of washed wool per head. These sheep long enjoyed 
great celebrity, and are now represented in the pedigrees of 
many excellent pure bred flocks; but as a distinct family, they 
have mostly been merged in the two next to be described. 

The Infantado or Atwood Merino. — In 1813, Stephen 
Atwood, of Woodbury, Connecticut, bought a ewe of Col. 
David Humphreys for $120. He bred this ewe and her 
descendants to rams in his neighborhood which he knew to 
be of pure Humphreys' blood, until about 1830, after which 
period he uniformly used rams from his own flock. This is 
the distinct and positive statement of a man of conceded good 
character, and has been persisted in from a period long before 
the asserted tacts would have had any effect on the reputation 
of his flock. From 1815 to 1824, and indeed down to a much 
later period, the pedigrees of "old-fashioned Merinos," as 
they were then termed, received very little respect or 
attention; and, in fact, I am not aware that Mr. Humphreys' 
importation enjoyed any especial credit over several other of 
the principal importations, until its reputation was reflected 
back on it by Mr. Atwood's own flock. Mr. Atwood, 
moreover, is a purely practical man ; has been specially and 
almost exclusively devoted to his sheep; and has always acted 
as his own shepherd. We have no right, then, to doubt 
either his sincerity or his accuracy. 

In 1840, his sheep were not far from the size and form of 
Mr. Jarvis' — though I think they were inclined to be a little 
flatter in the ribs, and perhaps a little deeper chested. Their 
wool was short, fine, even, well crimped, brilliant, generally 
thick, and very dark colored externally for that day. Some 
of them (particularly among the rams,) had a black external 
coat of hardened yolk, which was sticky in warm weather 
and formed a stiff" crust in cold weather. The inside yolk 
was abundant, and generally colorless. The wool was still 
shorter on the belly, and as with the Jarvis sheep, did not 
very well cover the legs and head. Few of them had any 
below the knees and hocks. Their skins were mellow, loose 
and of a rich pink color. The rams had a pendulous dew-lap 
and some of them neck-folds, or " wrinkles," of moderate 
size. They rarely exhibited them on other parts of the body, 
and the "broad tail" and deep pendulous flank of the present 
day, were unknown in both sexes. The ewes generally had 
dew-laps of greater or lesser width, sometimes dividing into 



THE IMPROVED INFANTADOS. 29 

two parts under the jaw, so as to form a triangular cavity or 
"pouch" between; and. there was on most of them a 
horizontal fold of skin running across the lower portion of 
the bosom or front of the brisket, — which was known as 
"the cross," and which modern breeders have developed into 
that pendulous mass now sometimes termed "the apron." 

When the Spanish Merinos came again into credit, this 
flock became a public favorite and colonies from it were 
rapidly scattered throughout the United States, and particu- 
larly in the State of New York. Some of these deteriorated, 
but most of them continued to improve. The great and 
leading improver of the family has been Edwin Hammond, of 
Middlebury, Vermont. He made three considerable purchases 
of Mr. Atwood's sheep between the beginning of 1844 and 
the close of 1846 — in the two last, getting the average of the 
flock, i. e., a proportionate number of each quality.* By a 
perfect understanding and exquisite management of his 
materials, this great breeder has effected quite as marked an 
improvement in the American Merino, as Mr. Bakewell 
effected among the long-wooled sheep of England. Pie has 
converted the thin, light-boned, smallish, and imperfectly 
covered sheep above described, into large, round, low, strong- 
boned sheep — models of compactness, and not a few of them 
almost perfect models of beauty, for fine-wooled sheep. I 
examined the flock nearly a week in February, 1863. They 
were in very high condition, though the ewes were fed only 
hay. Two of these weighed about 140 lbs. each. Numbers 
would have reached from 110 lbs. to 125 lbs. One of the two 
largest ewes had yielded a fleece of Hi lbs., and the other 
14£ lbs. of unwashed wool. The whole flock, usually about 
200 in number, with the due proportion of young and old and 
including, say, two per cent, of grown rams, and no wethers, 
yields an average of about 10 lbs. of unwashed wool per head. 
The ram, "Sweepstakes," given as the frontispiece of this 
volume, bred and now owned by Mr. Hammond, has yielded 
a single year's fleece of unwashed wool weighing 27 lbs. His 
weight in full fleece is about 140 lbs. Rams producing from 
20 lbs. to 24 lbs. are not unusual in the flock. 

Mr. Hammond's sheep exhibit no hardened yolk within 
the wool and but little externally : in nearly all of them the 
curves of the wool can be traced to its outer tips. They are 



* In one case he bought the entire lot of ewe lambs of a year ; in another, one-third 
of the old ewes — Mr. Atwood selecting the first and third, and Mr. Hammond tho 
second of each trio. He had partners in Borne of his purchases, but there is no 
occasion to name them here. 



30 THE AMERICAN PAULARS. 

dark colored because they have abundance of liquid " circu- 
lating" yolk, and because they (like all the leading breeding 
flocks of* Vermont,) are housed, not only in winter, but from 
summer rain storms. The great weight is made up not by 
the extra amount of yolk, but by the extra length and 
thickness of every part of the fleece. In many instances it is 
nearly as long and thick on the belly, legs,* forehead, cheeks, 
etc., as on the back and sides. The wool opens freely and 
with a good luster and style. It is of a high medium quality 
and remarkably even. Mr. Hammond is intentionally breeding 
it back to the buff tinge of the original Spanish wool. He 
has not specially cultivated folds in the skin. Sweepstakes 
has more of these than most of his predecessors and has much 
increased them in the flock. Some of his best ewes are nearly 
without them, though all perhaps have dew-laps and the 
" cross " on the brisket. In every respect this eminent 
breeder has directed his whole attention to solid value, and 
has never sacrificed a particle of it to attain either points of 
no value or of less value. He has bred exclusively from Mr. 
Atwood's stock, sire and dam; and since the rams originally 
purchased of Mr. Atwood by himself and associates, has only 
used rams of his own flock. The marked extent of his 
in-and-in breeding, will be adverted to in the Chapter which I 
shall devote to the general subject of in-and-in breeding. But 
this has not developed any delicacy of constitution in his 
flock. They are every way stronger and more robust sheep 
than their predecessors of 25 years ago, bring forth larger 
and stronger lambs, and are far better breeders and nurses. 

There are in Vermont and other States a large body of 
spirited and intelligent breeders whose flocks were founded 
mainly or exclusively on sheep purchased of Mr. Hammond. 
Not a few of them have bred with distinguished success. It 
would be justly considered invidious to mention the flocks of 
a portion of them, without mentioning all of equal merit. 
This I am unable to do, both because I am unprovided with a 
full list of them, and because the prescribed limits of this 
work do not admit of it. I have aimed to do justice to all of 
this improved family of sheep at once, in describing the flock 
of its distinguished founder. 

The Paular or Rich Merinos. — These sheep were 
originally purchased in 1823, by Hon. Charles Rich, M. C, 



* I do not mean to be understood that it is thus long below the knees and hocks, 
though it is generally quite as long as it ovght to be on the shanks. 



THE AMERICAN PAULAKS. 



31 



and Leonard Bedell, of Shorehani, Vermont, of Andrew Cock, 
of Flushing, Long Island. Cock purchased all of the original 
stock and part of the individual sheep sold to them, of the 
importers. Their Spanish pedigree, the authenticity of which 




MERINO EWE. 



was attested by a Consular certificate, (undoubtedly Mr. 
Jarvis', but that fact is not now remembered,) showed them to 
be Paulars.* They have been bred by John T. Rich, son of the 
preceding, and his sons John T. and Virtulan Rich, on the old 



* Cock delivered this certified pedigree to Bedell. Letters of the late John T. Rich, 
Esq., son of one of the purchasers, and of the late Hon. S. H. Jennison, ex-Governor of 
Vermont, were published in 1.844, stating-that they had seen this document ; and both 
gentlemen remembered the ewes in the flock certified to be of the original importation. 
Gov. Jennison says he saw them often between 1S24 and 1830. They were very old 
and toothless. The Hon. Effingham Lawrence, who resided in the same town with 
Cock, and who was himself a distinguished importer and breeder of Merinos, as well 
as an old-school gentleman, highly eminent for social position and integrity, wrote to 
me in 1844: — "Andrew Cock * * was my near neighbor. We were intimate and 
commenced laying the foundations of our Merino flocks about the same time. I was 
present when he purchased most of his sheep, which was in 1811. He first purchased 
two ewes at $1,100 per head. They were very fine, and of the Escurial flock imported 
hy Richard Crowninshield. His next purchase was 30 of the Paular breed at from $50 
to $100 per head. He continued to purchase of the different importations until be run 
them up to about eighty, always selecting them with great care. This was the 
foundation of A. Cock's flock, nor did he ever purchase any but pure blooded sheep 
to my knowledge or belief. Andrew Cock was an attentive breeder ; saw well to his 
business; and was of unimpeachable character. His certificate of the kind and 
purity of blood I should implicitly rely on. I recollect of his selling sheep to Leonard 
Bedell, of Vermont." Much other testimony sustaining the pedigree might be given. 



32 Tin; improved taulaks. 

homestead in Shoreham, down to the present day, without the 

least admixture of other blood than pure Spanish, and with 

very little crossing with other Spanish or American families. 

These sheep, in 1840, were heavy, short-legged, broad 

animals, full in the quarters, strong-honed, with thick, short 
necks and thick coarse heads. The ewes had deep and some- 
times plaited dew-laps and folds of moderate size about the 
neck. The rams had larger ones. They were darker exter- 
nally than the Jarvis sheep, but not so much so as the Atwood 
sheep — indicating that their wool contained more yolk than 
the former and less than the latter. The wool was longer 
than that of either of the other families, very thick and 
covered them better on the belly, legs and head. But it was 
inferior in fineness, evenness and style. It was epiite coarse 
on the thigh, and hairs were occasionally seen on the neck 
folds. The lambs were often covered with hair when yeaned, 
and their legs and ears were marked by patches of tan color 
which subsequently disappeared except on the ears, where it 
continued to show faintly. They were better nurses and 
hardier than either of the other families. I have remarked in 
a former publication that "they were precisely the negligent 
farmer's sheep." They encountered short keep, careless treat- 
ment of all kinds, exposure to autumnal storms and winter 
gales, with a degree of impunity which was unexampled. 
Their lambs came big, bony and strong, and did not suffer 
much if they were dropped in a snow bank. 

In 1842 and 1843 this flock was bred to a Jarvis ram — 
peculiarly dark, thick and heavy fleeced and compact in form 
for one of his family — the object of Mr. Rich being to avoid 
breeding in-and-in and to improve the quality of his wool. 
For the same object, and to increase the yolkness of the wool, 
a dip or two of Atwood blood has been since taken; but it 
has always been made a point to breed baelc after taking these 
crosses, so as essentially to preserve the blood and distinctive 
characteristics of the original family. The Messrs. Rich 
have succeeded in all these objects and have kept up well 
with the rapid current of modern improvement. Their sheep 
are not so large nor do they yield so much wool per head as 
the improved Infantados, but they possess symmetrical forms 
which are remarkable for compactness. The body is shortish, 
and very thick, with their ancient good fore and hind quarters ; 
and their heads, though thick and short, have lost their coarse- 
ness. Their fleeces are even and good. But that merit which 
gives them their great popularity hi Vermont and elsewhere, 



OTHER MERINO FAMILIES. 33 

is their adaptation to thin, scant herbage, and to their qualities 
as "working flocks." They demand no extra oare or keep 
to develop their qualities, are always lively and alert; and 
though gentle and perfectly free from restlessness of tempera- 
ment, they are ready to rove far and near to obtain their food. 
And for all they consume they make the most ample returns. 
While they will pay for care, they will thrive with but little 
care. In a word, they remain, par excellence, the negligent 
farmer's sheep. 

The ewe, the portrait of which is given on page 31, is a 
three year old of this family, and is one of a small munber of 
equal appearance and excellence, which I bought of the Messrs. 
Rich a year since. Her second fleece, when she was not so 
large as a high-kept yearling, and when she had not been 
housed before autumn, weighed 10 lbs. unwashed. Having 
bred both these and the Infantados for years, and being now 
about equally interested in both the improved families, I trust 
I can speak of them with impartiality; and I may here add 
that I also described Mr. Jarvis' sheep on ample personal 
experience.* 

Other Merino Families. — There were in 1840, a few 
small Merino flocks descended from pure Spanish importations, 
and derived from other sources than the foregoing, scattered 
Aery thinly through the States lying west of New England. 
Like the best Infantados and Paulars of that day, some of them 
averaged about 4? lbs. of washed wool to the fleece. I have 
been unable to obtain any authentic portraits of known 
Infantados or Paulars of that period. The drawing from 
which the cut given on the following page was taken, was 
made in 1840, by Francis Rotch, Esq., of Morris, (then called 
Louisville,) N. Y., one of the most eminent and skillful cattle 
and sheep breeders in the United States, and remarkable then 
as since for the accuracy and spirit of his drawings of animals. 
The cut is a ewe of his own flock of thirty breeding ewes, 
which had been selected with much care from different flocks 
in New England; and this one was then regarded as a model. 
She is rounder in the rib, broader and rounder in the thigh 
and fuller in the brisket than was common among the Merinos 
of that day. The illustration will show the changes which 



* The account which I have given of the characteristics, &c, of these families 20 
years ago, was submitted, in substantially the same form, to some of the most 
prominent present breeders of each variety, including Mr. Hammond and Mr. Rich, 
preparatory to its publication in my Report on Fine- Wool Husbandry in 1862, and it 
received their unanimous concurrence. See that Report, p. 53. 
2* 



34 OTI1EK MERINO FAMILIES. 

have taken place in American Merino sheep during the last 
twenty -three years. 




MERINO EWE. 

Other persons in New York, (including myself,) and 
several in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and perhaps some other StateSj 
owned pure Spanish flocks, not differing essentially in quality 
from those of Connecticut and Vermont. But while some 
flock-masters in New England, and particularly in Vermont, 
made ram breeding a specialty, those of the Middle and 
Western States generally devoted their attention to wool- 
growing, and soon began to draw their rams from the former 
sources. The consequence has been that they neither 
preserved nor established distinct families, among their early 
sheep; and those that now have pure and distinct families of 
the improved American Merinos (and their number greatly 
exceeds that of the breeders of pure sheep in NeAv England,) 
have generally obtained the origin of their flocks, within 1 lie 
last fifteen or twenty years, from Vermont, or from Mr. 
Atwood's flock in Connecticut. Consequently, there is not 
within my knowledge any other separate families that require 
a special description. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LATEE IMPOKTATIONS OF FTNE-WOOLED SHEEP INTO 
THE UNITED STATES. 

FRENCH AND SILESIAN MERINOS INTRODUCED. 

French Merinos Introduced. — The first importation of 
French Merinos into the United States, since they have 
assumed those characteristics which constitute them a separate 
variety, was made in 1840, by D. C. Collins, of Hartford, 
Conn. He purchased fourteen ewes and two rams from the t 
royal flock at Rambouillet, which were esteemed of such choice 
quality that one of the rams (" Grandee") and several of the 
ewes " could only be procured after they had been used in the 
national flock as far as it could be done with advantage." 
Grandee,- says A. B. Allen, then Editor of the American Agri- 
culturist, who attended Mr. Collins' sheep-shearing in 1843, 
was 3 feet 8 J inches long from the setting on of the horns to 
the end of the rump ; his height over the rump and shoulders 
was 2 feet 5 inches, and his weight in good fair condition 
about 150 lbs. The ewes were proportionably large. At 
three years old, in France, Grandee produced a fleece of 14 lbs. 
of unwashed wool. His fleece was suffered to grow from 
1839 to 1841, two years, and weighed 26 lbs. 3 oz. clean 
unwashed wool. One year's fleece in 1842 weighed 12| 
lbs. In 1843 the ewes yielded an average of 6 lbs. 9 oz. of 
unwashed wool. Mr. Allen commended their constitutions 
and longevity ; stated that they had large loose skins full of 
folds, especially about the neck and below it on the shoulders, 
and not unfrequently over the whole body; and that they 
were well covered with wool on every part down to the hoofs. 
Their fleeces opened of a brilliant creamy color, on a skin of 
rich pink, and was soft, glossy, wavy, and very even over the 
whole body. It was exceedingly close and compact, and had 
a yolk free from gum and easily liberated by washing.* 

* See Am. Agriculturist, vol. 2, p. 98. I mostly use Mr. Allen's language. 



36 FKKNCII MERINOS INTRODUCED. 

The laic Mr. Taintor, of Hartford, Connecticut, commenced 
importing French Merinos in 1840, and continued it through 
several succeeding years. He selected mostly from private 
flocks like those of M. Cughnot and M. Gilbert, which had 
been bred much larger and heavier fleeced than the royal one. 
Having made some inquiries of him, in 1862, in relation to the 
sheep of his importations, ho referred me to John D. Patterson 
of Westfield, New York, who had purchased very extensively 
of him and who owned as good animals as had ever been 
imported. That gentleman wrote to me : 

" In answer to your inquiry as to the weight of fleece of 
the French sheep and their live weight, I can only reply by 
giving the result of my own flock. My French rams have 
generally sheared from 18 to 24 pounds of an even year's 
growth, and unwashed, but some of them, with high keeping 
and light use, have sheared more, and my yearling rams have 
generally sheared from 15 to 22 pounds each. My breeding 
and yearling ewes have never averaged as low as 15 pounds 
each, unwashed, taking the entire flock. Some of them have 
sheared over 20 pounds each, but these were exceptions, 
being large and in high condition. The live weight of any 
animal of course depends very much upon its condition. My 
yearling ewes usually range from 90 to 130 pounds each, and 
the grown ewes from 130 to l'/O pounds each, and I have had 
some that weighed over 200 pounds each ; but these would be 
above the average size and in high flesh. My yearling rams 
usually weigh from 120 to 180 pounds each, and my grown 
rams from 180 to 250 pounds each — some of them have 
weighed over 300 pounds each, but these were unusually large 
and in high flesh and in full fleece. I have had ram lambs 
weigh 120 pounds at seven months old, but they were more 
thrifty, fleshy and larger than usual at that age." 

I have seen many sheep of Mr. Taintor's importation and 
their direct descendants. A large portion of them possessed 
good forms considering their great size. Their wool was not 
so fine as Mr. Collins', but of a fair medium quality and pretty 
even. Their fleeces were very light colored externally, com- 
pared with those of any American family, owing undoubtedly 
to their relative deficiency in yolk and to the more soluble 
character of their yolk. Unless housed with care from both 
summer and winter storms, they were about as destitute of 
yolk before washing as a considerable class of American 
Merinos are after it. Under common treatment, then, their 
fleeces are greatly lighter in proportion to bulk than those of 



FRENCH MERINOS. 37 

the latter, and correspondingly unprofitable in a market where 
no adequate discrimination is made between clean and dirty 
wools. 

" The only really weak point of the best French Merino as 
a pure wool producing animal, is the want of that hardiness 
which adapts it to our changeable climate and to our systems 
of husbandry. In this particular it is to the American Merino 
what the great pampered Short-Horn of England is to the 
little, hardy, black cattle of the Scotch Highlands — what the 
high-fed carriage horse, sixteen hands high, groomed and 
attended in a wainscoted stable, is to the Sheltie that feeds 
among the moors and mosses, and defies the tempests of the 
Orkneys. The French sheep has not only been highly kept 
and housed from storm and rain and dew for generations, but 
it has been bred away from the normal type of its race. The 
Dishley sheep of Mr. Bakewell are not a more artificial variety, 
and all highly artificial varieties become comparatively delicate 
in constitution."* 

The French Merino, if well selected, has always proved 
profitable in this country, where the French, or an equally 
fostering system of management, has been faithfully kept up — 
but by far the largest portion of buyers have not kept up such 
a system, and consequently their sheep have rapidly deterio- 
rated. Where the rams have been worked hard and exposed 
to rough vicissitudes of weather, they have frequently 
perished before the close of the first year. These facts 
account for that reaction which has taken place against this 
variety in the minds of many of our farmers. And the tide of 
prejudice has been enormously swelled by the impositions of 
a class of importers. It creates a smile to recall to memory 
the great, gaunt, shaggy monsters, with hair on their necks 
and thighs projecting three or four inches beyond the wool — 
mongrels probably of the second or third cross between 
French Merinos and some long-wooled and huge-bodied 
variety of mutton sheep — which were picked up in France 
and hawked about this country by greedy speculators, who 
knew that, at that time, size and " wrinkles" would sell any 
thing ! 

I regret that Mr. Patterson's absence in California has 
prevented me from obtaining original drawings of some of 



* I quote this paragraph from my Report on Fine - Wool Husbandry, 1862, 
because Mr. Taintor, the Messrs. Allen, and several other distinguished breeders and 
advocates of French Sheep, wrote to me expressing their entire satisfaction with my 
description of that breed in the Report ; and the above quotation may therefore be set 
down as res adjndicata. 



38 SILESIAN MERINOS INTRODUCED. 

these sheep in time for this volume. I have not known -where 
else to look for pure and favorable specimens of the variety. 
Colonies of French Sheep have been planted in the mild 
climate of the South, in California, and in other situations the 
most favorable to them. I cannot but hope that they Avill 
yet acclimatize into a valuable variety for portions of our 
country. They are good mothers. They often raise twins. 
As a fine-wool mutton sheep they should stand unrivaled. 




SILESIAN MERINO RAM. 

Introduction of Silesian Merinos. — The following 
account of the introduction of this variety and of its charac- 
teristics, is contained in a letter from the principal importer, 
William Chamberlain, of Red Hook, New York. He wrote 
to me iii January, 1862: 

"Your favor dated 24th ult. is received, and it gives me 
pleasure to furnish the required information in vegan I to my 
flock of Silesian sheep, with full liberty to make such use of 
the facts as you please. 



SILESIAN MERINOS. 39 

" 1st. I have made importations for myself and George 
Campbell of Silesian sheep, as follows : 

In the year 1851, say 40 ewes and 15 bucks. 

do. 1853, do 27 do. 4 do. 

do. 1854, do Ill do. 13 do. 

do. 1856, do 34 do. 2 do. 

212 34 do. 

"In 1854 I visited Silesia and made the purchases myself. 

" 2d. The sheep were bred by Louis Fischer, of Wirchen- 
blatt, Silesia, except a few which were bred by his near 
neighbor, Baron Weidebach, who used Fischer's breeders. 

"3d. Their origin is Spain. In 1811 Ferdinand Fischer, 
the father of Louis Fischer, the present owner of the flock, 
visited Spain himself and purchased one hundred of the best 
ewes he could find of the Infantado flocks, and four bucks 
from the Negretti flock, and took them home with him to 
Silesia, and up to the present day they have not been crossed 
with any other flocks or blood, but they have been crossed 
within the families. The mode pursued is to number every 
sheep and give the same number to all her increase ; an 
exact record is kept in books, and thus Mr. Fischer is enabled 
to give the pedigree of every sheep he owns, running back to 
1811, which is positive proof of their entire purity of blood. 
The sheep are perhaps not as large as they would be if a little 
other blood were infused ; but Mr. F. claims that entire purity 
of blood is indispensably necessary to insure uniformity 
of improvement when crossed on ordinary wool growers' 
flocks ; and such is the general opinion of wool growers in 
Germany, Poland and Russia, which enables Mr. Fischer to 
sell at high prices as many bucks and ewes as he can spare, 
and as he and his lather have enjoyed this reputation for so 
many years, I am fully of opinion that he is right. From these 
facts you will observe that my sheep are pure Spanish. 

"4th. Medium aged ewes shear from 8 to 11 pounds; 
bucks from 12 to 16 pounds; but in regard to ewes, it must 
be borne in mind that they drop their lambs from November 
to February, -which lightens the clip somewhat. I do not 
wash my sheep. 

" 5th. I have sold my clip from 30 to 45 cents, according 
to the market. 

" 6th. We have measured the wool on quite a number of 
sheep, and find it from one and a half to two inches long, say 
eight months' growth, but I have no means of knowing what 
it would be at twelve months' growth. 



40 SILESIAN MERINOS. 

" 7th. Their external color is dark. The wool lias oil but 
no gum whatever, they having been bred so as to make them 
entirely free from gum — German manufacturers always insist- 
ing on large deductions in the price of wool where gum is 
found. 

" 8th. As above stated, the Silesians have oil, but no gum 
like those which are sold for Spanish and French, and the oil is 
white and free ; the wool does not stick together. 

" 9th. We have weighed five ewes. Three dropped their 
lambs last month ; the other two have not yet come in. Their 
weights are 115, 140, 130, 115 and 127 pounds; three bucks 
weighing severally 145, 158, 155 pounds; one yearling buck 
weighing 130 pounds; but this would be more than an 
average weight of my flock when young and very old sheep 
were brought into the average. My sheep are only in fair 
condition, as I feed no grain. They have beets, which I 
consider very good for milk, but not so good for flesh as 
grain. 

"10th and 11th. For the first time my shepherd has 
measured some sheep : ewes from 24 to 28 inches high, fore- 
leg 11 to 12 inches; bucks, 27 to 28 inches high, fore-leg 12 
to 13 £ inches. 

" 12th. We find the Silesians hardy, much more so than a 
small flock of coarse mutton sheep that I keep and treat quite 
as well as I do the Silesians. 

" 13th. They are first-rate breeders and nurses, 

"Some of these facts I have given on the statement of my 
shepherd, CarlHeyne, who was one of Mr. Fischer's shepherds, 
and came home with the sheep I purchased in 1854, and a man 
whose honor and integrity I can fully indorse. 

" My sheep do not deteriorate in this country, but the wool 
rather grows finer without any reduction in the weight of 
fleece." 

In a subsequent letter Mr. Chamberlain wrote to me : 

" Carl has weighed a feAV more of our Silesian sheep, and 
their weights are as follows : Four full aged ewes, respect- 
ively, 120, 125, 107, 107 pounds; two ewe lambs, 90, 87 
pounds; two two-year old bucks, 124, 122 pounds; one three- 
fourths blood, 143 pounds. 

" I attended to the weighing and selection myself, and am 
of opinion that our ewes from three to eight years old average 
fully 115 pounds, say before dropping their lambs. Our 
younger sheep do not weigh as much. Silesians do not get 
their full size till four years of age, and after eight or nine 



SILESIAN MERINOS. 



41 



years they are not as heavy. * * * Mr. Fischer's sheep 
are large, say larger than any flock of Vermont Merinos that 
I have seen. * * * N I have the lambs come from 
November to March, because Carl says it is the best way, and 
I let him do as he pleases. * * * The ewes do not give 
quite as much wool, but I think the lambs make stronger 
sheep, as they get a good start the first summer." 

The Silesian ram, a portrait of which is given on page 38, 
was bred by Mr. Chamberlain, and is now the property of 
James Geddes, of Fairmount, N". Y. He is regarded as 
an extraordinarily valuable animal of the family. He is large 
in size and yields an unusually heavy fleece. 

The following cut represents a group of Silesian ewes 
imported by Mr. Chamberlain. 




GROUP OF SILESIAN EWES. 



I visited Mr. Chamberlain's flock in February, 1863. 
Most of the lambs were then dropped and the ewes appeared 
to be excellent mothers. They were fed beets but no grain. 
They are housed constantly in cold weather, except when let 
out to drink — housed nights throughout the year, and from all 
summer rain storms. From the limited quantity of his 
available pasturage, Mr. Chamberlain restricts them far more 
than is usual in that particular in summer, but allows them to 



42 SILESIAN MERINOS. 

eat what hay they wish at night. He considers this more 
profitable than devoting more of his high-priced lands to 
pasturage, and quite as well if not better for the sheep. 

The carcasses of his sheep are round and symmetrical. 
Some of them are taller in proportion to weight than is 
desirable — because German breeders pay less attention to this 
point — but this tendency could be readily changed without 
going out of the flock for rams. The wool is of admirable 
quality and uniformity, and opens most brilliantly on a mellow, 
rose-colored skin. The fleece is very dark externally. 

Wherever it is most profitable to grow very fine wool, this 
variety, or rather this family, ought to stand unrivaled. 
Whether they have ever been tested under the common rough 
usage of our country I am not advised. There is nothing in 
their forms or general appearance to indicate that they would 
not generally conform to it. They would doubtless lose 
much of their external color and early maturity, and perhaps 
something of their ultimate size. But the same would be 
true of all the summer-housed, high kept and carefully 
tended Merinos of our country. 






CHAPTER V. 



BKITISH AND OTHEK LONG AND MIDDLE - WOOLED 
SHEEP IN THE UNITED STATES. 

LEICESTERS, COTSWOLDS, LINCOLNS, NEW OXFORDSHIRES, 
E-LACK-EACED SCOTCH, CHEVIOT, FAT-RUMPED, BROAD-TAILED, 
PERSIAN AND CHINESE SHEEP. 

No breed of domestic sheep were indigenous to the United 
States ; nor is it deemed necessary here to attempt to trace 
the origin or subsequent history of the various breeds and 
families, imported by our ancestors when they colonized this 
Continent, and which, being mixed promiscuously together, 
constituted what it became customary to speak of as the 
" Native Sheep," when the Merino and the improved British 
breeds were afterwards introduced. They were generally 
lank, gaunt, slow -feeding, coarse, short-wooled, hardy, 
prolific animals — not well adapted to any special purpose of 
wool or mutton production. A family of them, the Otter 
Sheep — so termed from their short, crooked, rickety legs, a 
mere perpetuated monstrosity — and the descendants of some 
English long-wools, on Smith's Island, imagined by a few 
persons to be indigenous there — are the only sub-varieties 
which have ever attracted special notice ; and they were 
wholly unworthy of it. 

Not having bred English sheep of late years, and never 
having bred them extensively, I can entertain little doubt that 
I shall give more satisfaction to the readers of this volume if 
I select descriptions of them from British and American 
sources of recognized authority. 

The Leicester Sheep.* — It is with profound pleasure that 
I am enabled to trace the first probable importation into the 

* I leave off the prefix " New," because these sheep have altogether superseded 
the parent stock, so as to be generally denominated " the Leicester." And they are 
so denominated in the prize lists of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 



44 LEICESTERS INTRODUCED. 

United States of improved English Sheep, if not of improved 
sheep of any kind, to that great man, first in the arts of peace 
as well as Avar, George Washington. •Livingston, writing 
in 1809, says of the "Arlington Long-Wooled Sheep" that 
they were "derived from the stock" of General "Washington 
— being bred by his step-son, Mr. Custis, from a Persian 
ram and Bakewell ewes. Gen. Washington died near the 
close of 1 799* 

A Mr. Lax, who resided on Long Island, "smuggled" 
some Leicesters into the United States not far from 1810; 
and from these Christopher Dunn, of Albany, New York, 
obtained the origin of his long celebrated flock. f During the 
war of 1812 with England, some choice Leicesters, on their 
way to Canada, were captured by one of our privateers, and 
sold at auction in New York, and thus became scattered 
throughout the country. Some sheep of this family were also 
early introduced by Captain Beanes, of New Jersey .J 

The elaborate descriptions of the Leicesters, by Youatt 
and Spooner, have been made so familiar to American readers, 
that I shall use that of Mr. John Wilson, Professor of Agri- 
culture in the University of Edinburgh, in a paper " On the 
Various Breeds of Sheep in Great Britain," published in the 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in 
1856: 



* Livingston (see his Essay on Sheep, p. 68,) does not expressly say that Gen. 
Washington introduced the "Bakewells," but this is to be inferred from his state- 
ment that the Arlington Sheep "were derived from his stock," without making an 
exception of the Bakewells. Mr. Livingston speaks of the Arlington's as an existing 
family, when he wrote. I have not Mr. Custis's pamphlet before me from which he 
appears to have derived his facts. 

1 He commenced crossing it with a Cotswold ram in 1S32, and from that period it 
became a grade flock between the two families. But it was an excellent one. His 
wethers weighed 35 lbs. per quarter and carried 8 lbs. of wool per head. His first 
Cotswold ram weighed alive 250 lbs., and yielded at one shearing 15 1 .-. lhs. of wool 14 
inches long. In 1886 he sold ewes from $12 to $15 a head, and rams from $80 to $50 a 
head. Several eminent Hocks in the vicinity, like those of Mr. Duane and Mr. North, 
in Schenectady, &c, &c., originated from these. 1 have obtained most of my facte 
about Mr. Dunn's sheep from a communication signed B. in the Albany Cultivator, 
March, 1835, It was undoubtedly written by Caleb N. Lenient — entirely reliable 
authority; but whoever wrote the article, Judge Buell, then editor of the Cultivator, 
who was perfectly conversant with Mr. Dunn and his Hock, would not have published 
any erroneous statements in regard to either; and had any errors crept into his 
columns by oversight, he would have promptly corrected them. 

Mr. William H. Sotham, in a communication to the Cultivator in 1S40, states the 
following tacts of six wethers bred and fed by Mr. Dunn that year. The heaviest 
weighed 210 lbs., and the fat on the ribs measured 5% inches. The thickness of fat on 
the smallest was 4J£ inches. They were sold to Mr. Kirkpatrick for $22 a head, and 
the meat sold rapidly in the market for 12>2 cents a pound. The fleeces averaged 
about 10 lbs. each in weight. 

$ Capt. Beanes also introduced Teeswaters and South Downs, but they were not 
long kept distinct from the surrounding varieties and families. It has been said that 
some Teeswaters were included among the sheep captured, as above stated, by a priva- 
teer in 1812. 



LEICESTER SHEEP. 



45 




anil (« V HAv f/.w s?i/ZX U/Affl 




CARSOIV. 



LEICESTER RAM. 



" It was about the middle of the last century when Mr. 
Bakewell, of Dishley, in Leicestershire, began his experiments 
in the improvement of the breed of long-wooled sheep, at that 
time common to the midland counties. The old Leicesters 
were then considered as possessing many valuable properties ; 
at the same time they possessed many defects. These 
defects Bake well sought by a judicious crossing with other 
breeds to remedy, while at the same time he retained the 
good points of the original breed. Up to this period the 
great object of breeders seems to have been confined to the 
production of animals of the largest size possible, and carrying 
the heaviest fleece. The old Leicesters are described as large, 
heavy, coarse-grained animals, the meat having but little 
flavor and no delicacy — the carcass was long and thin, flat- 
sided, with large bones on thick rough legs. The fleece was 
heavy and long, and of coarse quality. The sheep were slow 
feeders, and when sent to market at two and three years old, 
weighed about 100 to 120 lbs. each. Such were the charac- 
teristics of the stock upon which Bakewell commenced his 
improved system of breeding. Recognizing the relation 



46 LEICESTER SHEEP. 

which exists between the form of an animal and its physical 
tendencies, he sought to cross his sheep with such breeds as he 
considered would be most likely to insure those points in the 
animal frame which were defective in the old breed, and thus 
to introduce an aptitude to lay on the largest possible amount 
both of flesh and fat in the shortest space of time, and at the 
least expenditure of food. The fleece too was not forgotten, 
as that would necessarily share in the general improvement of 
the animal. ******* 

"In order to obtain a permanent character to his breed, 
after he had by continued crossing secured all those points 
he considered desirable, Bakewell carried on his breeding 
with his own blood, and did not scruple to use animals closely 
allied to each other. This system, adhered to more or less 
during a course of years by his successors and by later 
breeders, while sustaining the purity of the breed, had 
the effect of lessening its value to the farmer. It gradually 
exhibited a weakened constitution, became reduced in size 
and more delicate in form — the ewes were less prolific and less 
generous to their offspring. These prominent and serious 
defects soon craved the attention of enlightened breeders, who, 
by a judicious introduction of new blood, have again restored 
the original character of the breed, with- all the improvements 
resulting from the advanced system of cultivation and the 
enlarged area of sheep farming of the present day. 

"The New Leicester is now perhaps the most widely 
extended and most numerous of all our native breeds. The 
sheep are without horns, with white faces and legs; the head 
small and clean ; the eye bright ; neck and shoulders square 
and deep ; back straight, with deep carcass ; hind quarters 
tapering toward the tail and somewhat deficient when com- 
pared with the Cotswold sheep ; legs clean, with fine bone. 
The flesh is juicy but of moderate quality, and is remarkable 
for the proj)ortion of outside fat it carries. 

"They are not considered so hardy as the other large 
breeds, and require shelter and good keep. The ewes are 
neither very prolific nor good mothers, and the young lambs 
require great attention. Early maturity and aptitude for 
fattening are the principal characteristics of the breed ; a large 
proportion of the wethers finding their way to market at 
twelve or fifteen months old, and weighing from 80 to 100 
lbs. each ; at two years old they average 120 to 150 lbs. each. 
The wool is a valuable portion of the flock, the fleeces 
averaging 7 lbs. each. 



LEICESTER SHEEP. 



47 



"The occasional introduction of a little Cotswold blood into 
a Leicester flock has the effect of improving both the consti- 
tution of the animal and also the hind quarters, in which the 
Leicester is somewhat defective. Ram-breeding is carried out 
to a much larger extent with this breed than with any other." 




m§i i mi 




CARSO/V, SC./V.Y. 



LEICESTER EWE. 

The accompanying cuts are from drawings of a pair of 
Leicesters imported by Mr. Samuel Campbell, of New York 
Mills, Oneida Coimty, New York, and Mr. James Brodie, of 
Rural Hill, Jefferson County, New York. They were 
imported in the spring of 1861. The ram was bred by Mr. 
Simpson and the ewe by John Thomas Robinson, both of 
Yorkshire, England. The ram weighs 276 lbs.* Messrs. 
Campbell and Brodies' ewes weigh from 200 lbs. to 250 lbs. 
Their "yearlings and wethers yield from 10 lbs. to 15 lbs. of 
wool and their breeding: ewes about 8 lbs." 



* His weight of fleece was not sent to me, nor was the seperate weight of the 
fleece of the ewe of which a cut is given. Messrs. C. and B. sold a ram to Sanford 
Howard, Esq., of Boston, which at 21 months old weighed 273 lbs., and they have 
a two year old which weighs 300 lbs. 



48 



COTSWOLDS INTRODUCED. 




COTSWOLD BAM. 



The Cotswold Sheep. — The Cotswold Sheep were 
introduced into the United States about thirty-five years ago. 
Mr. Dunn imported a ram to cross with his New Leicesters in 
1832, and I think some other importations of pairs or single 
ones took place not far from the same period. The first 
considerable importation of which I have any information was 
made in 1840, by Hon. Erastus Corning, of Albany, New 
York, and William II. Sotham, then of Jefferson County, New 
York, whose sheep, twenty-five in number, were bred by Mr. 
Hewer, of Northleach, Gloucestershire, England. Like all 
the improved Cotswolds, they had a dash of New Leicester 
blood, and they were very superior animals of the family. 
The same gentlemen purchased later in 1840 fifty ewes in 
lamb from Mr. Hewer, and twenty from Mr. William Cother, 
of Middle Aston, England. These were also prime sheep. 
From Messrs. Corning and Sotham's stock have originated 
many valuable flocks, now widely scattered throughout the 
country. Quite a large number of Cotswolds have since been 
imported from Canada, a considerable portion of them from 
the flock of Mr. Frederick William Stone, of Moreton Lodge, 



COTSWOLD SHEEP. 49 

Guelph, Canada West. " Pilgrim," the ram, of which a cut 
is given on preceding page, was bred by Mr. Stone, and is 
now the property of Mr. Henry G. White, of South Fra- 
mingham, Massachusetts. Pilgrim, just off his winter feed, 
weighs 250 lbs. He would weigh considerably more in the 
fall. He yielded 18 lbs. of wool in 1862. 

The ewe, " Lady Gay," a portrait of which is given on next 
page was also bred by Mr. Stone, and is owned by Mr. White. 
She weighs 200 lbs., suckling a lamb. She yielded 16 pounds 
of wool in 1862. Pilgrim, and five ewes belonging to Mr. 
White, yielded an average of 16 lbs. of wool per head. 

The Cotswolds are thus described by Mr. Spooner in his 
work on Sheep : — " The Cotswold is a large breed of sheep, 
with a long and abundant fleece, and the ewes are very 
prolific and good nurses. Formerly they were bred only on 
the hills, and fatted in the valleys of the Severn and the 
Thames ; but with the inclosure of the Cotswold Hills and the 
improvement of their cultivation they have been reared and 
fatted in the same district. They have been extensively 
crossed with the Leicester sheep, by which their size and 
fleece have been somewhat diminished, but their carcasses 
considerably improved, and their maturity rendered earlier. 
The wethers are now sometimes fattened at 14 months old, 
when they weigh from 15 lbs. to 24 lbs. per quarter, and at 
two years old increase to 20 lbs. or 30 lbs. The wool is 
strong, mellow, and of good color, though rather coarse, 6 to 
8 inches in length, and from 7 lbs. to 8 lbs. per fleece. The 
superior hardihood of the improved Cotswold over the 
Leicester, and their adaptation to common treatment, together 
with the prolific nature of the ewes and their abundance of 
milk, have rendered them in many places rivals of the New 
Leicester, and have obtained for them, of late years, more 
attention to their selection and general treatment, under 
which management still further improvement appears very 
probable. They have also been used in crossing other breeds, 
and as before noticed, have been mixed with the Hampshire 
Downs. It is, indeed, the improved Cotswold that, under the 
term New or Improved Oxfordshire Sheep, are so frequently 
the successful candidates for prizes offered for the best long- 
wooled sheep at some of the principal agricultural meetings 
or shows in the Kingdom. The quality of the mutton is 
considered superior to that of the Leicester, the tallow being 
less abundant, with a larger development of muscle or flesh. 
Wc may, therefore, regard this breed as one of established 
3 



50 



LINCOLNS INTRODUCED. 



reputation, and extending itself throughout every district of 
the Kingdom."* 




■■■■;■ 




COTSWOLD EWE. 

TnE Lincolxs. — The Lincolns are a less improved and 
larger variety of long-wools than either of the preceding, and 
those introduced into the United States, having heen mostly 
or entirely merged by cross-breeding with the Leicesters and 
Cotswolds, they do not demand a separate description. Mr. 
Leonard D. Clift, of Carmel, Putnam County, New York, 
imported a ram and owe of this variety, in 1835, "from the 
estate of the Earl of Lansdowne, Yorkshire, England." 
Messrs. George H. Gossip & Brother imported a number in 
1836 from Lancashire. From these Mr. Clift obtained 
sixteen ewes and a ram, and established a flock which Avas 
generally regarded as highly valuable. They were hardy, 
gross feeders, and very prolific. They yielded from 6 lbs. to 
10 lbs. of wool per head. Mr. Clift sold a lot of half-blood 
two year old wethers in February, 1839, which weighed 125 
lbs. to the carcass, and he obtained 25 cents a pound for them. 

* Spooner on Sheep, p. 99. 



new oxfords — black-faced sheep. 51 

The New Oxfordshires, or Improved Cotswolds. — 
These were first introduced into this country by Mr. Charles 
Reybold, of Delaware, in 1846. They are the result of a cross 
between the New Leicesters and Cotswolds, the preponder- 
ance being given to the blood of the latter. We have seen 
the very high character given of them by Mr. Spooner, in his 
description of the Cotswolds, already quoted. 

In Mr. James S. Grennell's Report, as Chairman of the 
Committee on Sheep Husbandry appointed by the Massachu- 
setts State Board of Agriculture, 1860, is given the following 
communication in regard to these Sheep by an American 
breeder of them, then of eight years standing — Mr. Lawrence 
Smith, ofMiddlefield: 

" I doubt whether they are as hardy as the old-fashioned 
Cotswolds or South Downs. I have never had any trouble 
with them in regard to cold weather, or changes of climate ; 
indeed, they prefer an open, cool, airy situation to any other, 
and nothing is more destructive to their health than tight, ill- 
ventilated stables. My present experience warrants me in 
saying that one-half the ewes will have twins ; they are capital 
nurses and milkers ; I have not had for the past seven years a 
single case of neglect on the part of the dam, nor have I lost 
a single lamb from lack of constitution. Yearling ewes will 
weigh in store condition from 125 lbs. to 175 lbs.; fat wethers 
at three years old, from 175 to 250 lbs. My heavist breeding 
ewe last winter weighed 211 lbs. My flock of store sheep 
and breeding ewes generally shear from five to seven pounds. 
My ram fleeces sometimes weigh ten pounds unwashed, and 
will sell in this condition for twenty-five cents per pound. I 
never feed anymore sheep and lambs with grain, but give 
them early cut hay, and occasionally a few roots." 

The New Oxfordshires are not to be confounded with the 
Oxfordshire Downs, which are cross-breeds between the 
Cotswolds and South or Hampshire Downs, and which have 
dark faces. 



X 



■, The Black -Faced Scotch Sheep. — These are a small, 
active, hardy, but for a mountain family, rather docile sheep, 
which have open, hairy fleeces, and black legs and faces. 
They can endure great privations, and can even subsist on 
heather. Hence they are often called the heath sheep. Their 
mutton is of excellent quality. They weigh on an average 
from 60 lbs. to 65 lbs. each at three or four years old; and 
they yield about 3 lbs. per head of washed wool. They have 



52 CHEVIOT SHEEP. 

been introduced into the United States by Mr. Samuel 
( lampbeU, of New York Mills, New York, and by Mr. Sanford 
Howard, of Boston, Massachusetts, for Mr. Isaac Stickney, of 
the same State. Mr. Campbell's sheep must be a cross, for he 
writes me that he should think their weight of fleece would 
be from G lbs. to 8 lbs., and that on the 13th of May, 1863, 
they weighed alive as follows: old ram, 132 lbs.; old ewe, 
103 lbs.; yearling ram, 102 lbs.; two yearling ewes, 99 lbs. 
and 100 lbs. They have often been crossed successfully in 
Scotland and the North of England, with larger families. 
On the bleak, sterile mountain ranges of North-Eastern New 
York, and portions of New England, they probably would 
prove a profitable acquisition. 

The Cheviot Sheep. — Some of these (middle-woolcd) 
sheep were introduced into the State of New York a number 
of years since, and were thus mentioned by me in Sheep Hus- 
bandry in the South (1848) : 

" Sheep of this kind have been imported into my imme- 
diate neighborhood and were subject to my frequent inspection 
for two or three years. They had the appearance of small 
Leicesters, but were considerably inferior in correctness of 
proportions to high-bred animals of that variety. They 
perhaps more resemble a cross between the Leicester and the 
old Native or common breed of the United States. Their 
fleeces were too coarse to furnish a good carding wool — too 
short for a good combing one. Mixed with a small lot of 
better wool, their this year's clip sold for 29 cents per pound, 
while my heavier Merino fleeces sold for 42 cents per pound. 
They attracted no notice, and might at any time have been 
bought of their owner for the price of common sheep of the 
same Aveight. I believe the flock was broken up and sold to 
butchers and others this spring, after shearing. They were 
certainly inferior to the description of the breed by Sir John 
Sinclair, even in 1792, quoted by Mr. Youatt,* and had all the 
defects attributed to the original stock by Cully.f They 
might not, however, have been favorable specimens of the 
breed." 

Mr. Spooner thus describes the improved family : — "This 
breed has greatly extended itself throughout the mountains 
of Scotland, and in many instances supplanted the black- 
faced breed; but the change, though in many cases advanta- 



* On Sheep, pp. 2S5-G. t Cully on Live Stock, p 150. 



ASIATIC AND AFRICAN BREEDS. 53 

geous, has in some instances been otherwise, the latter being 
somewhat hardier, and more capable of subsisting on healthy 
pasturage. They are, however, a hardy race, well suited for 
their native pastures, bearing with comparative impunity the 
storms of winter, and thriving well on poor keep. Though 
less hardy than the black-faced sheep of Scotland, they are 
.more profitable as respects their feeding, making more flesh 
on an equal quantity of food, and making it quicker. They 
have white faces and legs, open countenances, lively eyes, 
without horns. The ears are large, and somewhat singular, 
and there is much space between the ears and eyes. The 
carcass is long ; the back straight ; the shoulders rather light ; 
the ribs circular ; and the quarters good. The legs are small 
in the bone and covered with wool, as well as the body, with 
the exception of the face. The Cheviot wether is fit for the 
butcher at three years old, and averages from 12 lbs. to 18 lbs. 
per quarter — the mutton being of a good quality, though 
inferior to the South Down, and of less flavor than the black- 
faced. * * * The Cheviot, though a mountain breed, is 
quiet and docile, and easily managed. The wool is fine,* 
closely covers the body, assisting much in preserving it from 
the effects of wet and cold; the fleece averaging about 3i lbs. 
Formerly the wool was extensively employed for making 
cloths, but having given place to the finer Saxony wool, it has 
sunk in price, and been confined to combing purposes. It has 
thus become altogether a secondary consideration." 

Fat -Humped, Broad -Tailed, Persian and Chinese 
Sheep. — All of these breeds of sheep have been introduced 
into the United States from Asia and Africa, but as a 
general thing perhaps rather for the indulgence of curiosity 
than from any expectation of establishing valuable flocks 
from them. A variety of the Broad -Tailed sheep, however, 
sent home by Commodore Porter from Smyrna, was bred 
for a considerable period in the United States, and kept 
pure in South Carolina.f A family of them, termed the 
"Tunisian Mountain Sheep," were received "in a national 
ship" by Col. Pickering, who caused them to be distributed 
in Pennsylvania; they were bred there for some time, and 
were very highly commended by Mr. John Hare Powell. \ A 

* Mr. Spooner undoubtedly employs this term relatively, meaning fine for a 
middle - wooled sheep. 

1 1 received this information from Hon. R. F. W. Allston, late Governor of that State. 

\ See his Letter on Various Breeds of Sheep, 1826, in Memoirs of N. Y. Board of 



54 CHINESE SIIEEP. 

Persian ram, " very large and well formed, carrying wool of 
great length, but of a coarse staple," crossed with New 
Leicester ewes, formed, as we have already seen when speak- 
ing of the New Leicesters, the " Arlington long-wooled sheep" 
of Mount Vernon, a sub-variety which attracted considerable 
notice in its day. 

The Chinese, or Nankin sheep, have recently been brought* 
into this country and England, and have attracted some notice 
from the fict that they frequently give birth to three or four 
lambs at a time and breed tAvice a year — facts which have led 
to the expectation that they may prove profitable for lamb 
raising in the vicinity of cities. I have seen no description 
of their qualities in any other particulars. None of these 
breeds have proved, or probably will prove, of much value 
as mutton sheep, compared with the improved English 
families, and as wool-producing sheep they are all worthless 
compared with the Merino. I have therefore thought that 
2>articular descriptions of them would not be worth the srmce 
they would occupy. 

Agriculture, vol. 3, p. 377. Mr. Peters, of Pennsylvania, also imported Tunis sheep, 
ami thought well of them. 



CHAPTER VI. 

'BEITISH SHOET- WOOLED SHEEP, ETC., IN TEE UNITED 

STATES. 

THE SOUTH DOWNS, HAMPSHIRE DOWNS, SHROPSHIRE DOWNS, 
AND OXFORDSHIRE DOWNS. 

The principal Short -Wooled British families of Sheep 
which have been introduced in any considerable numbers into 
the United States since the period of the early settlement of 
the country, are the South Downs, the Hampshire Downs, the 
Shropshire Downs and the Oxfordshire Downs. I include the 
last under this designation only because they are classed 
among the Downs, — for those introduced into the United 
States are really a middle if not almost a long-wooled sheep. 

The South Downs. — Professor Wilson, in his paper 
already cited, thus describes the South Downs : 

" The South Downs of the present day present probably as 
marked an improvement upon the original breed as that 
exhibited by the Leicesters or any other breed. To the 
late Mr. Ellman, of Glynde, they are indebted for the high 
estimation in which they are now generally held. When he 
commenced his experiments in breeding he found the sheep of 
small size and far from possessing good points ; being long 
and thin in the neck ; narrow in the fore quarters ; high on 
the shoulders ; low behind, yet high on the loins ; sharp on 
the back ; the ribs flat, drooping behind, with the tail set very 
low ; good in the leg, though somewhat coarse in the bone. 
By a careful and unremitting attention during a series of years 
to the defective points in the animal, and a judicious selection 
of his breeding flock, his progressive improvements were at 
length acknowledged far and wide ; and he closed an useful 
and honorable career of some fifty years with the satisfactory 
conviction that he had obtained for his favorite breed a repu- 
tation and character which would secure them a place as the 
first of our short -wooled sheep. 



86 



SOUTH DOWN SHEEP. 



" The South-Down sheep of the present day are without 
horns, and with dark brown faces and legs ; the size and weight 
have been increased ; the fore quarters improved in width and 
depth ; the back and loins have become broader and the ribs 
more curved, so as to form a straight and level back ; the 
hind quarters are square and full, the tail well set on, and the 
limbs shorter and finer in the bone. These results are due to 
the great and constant care which has been bestowed on the 
breed by Ellman and his contemporaries, as well as by his 
successors, whose flocks fully sustain the character of the 
improved breed. 




SOUTH DOWN RAM. 



"The sheep, though fine in form and symmetrical in 
appearance, are very hardy, keeping up their condition on 
moderate pastures and readily adapting themselves to the 
different districts and systems of farming in which they are 
now met with. They are very docile, and thrive well, even 
when folded on the artificial pastures of an arable farm. Their 
disposition to fatten enables them to be brought into the 
market at twelve and fifteen months old, when they average 



SOUTH DOWN SHEEP. 



57 



80 lbs. weight each. At two years old they will weigh from 
100 to 120 lbs. each. The meat is of fine quality and always 
commands the highest price in the market. The ewes are 
very prolific, and are excellent mothers, commonly rearing 120 
to 130 lambs to the 100 ewes. The fleece, which closely 
covers the body, produces the most valuable of our native 
wools. It is short in the staple, fine and curling, with spiral 
ends, and is used for carding purposes generally."* 

Mr. Jonas Webb, of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, was the 
most successful follower of Ellman, and carried the breed to 
that perfection which is now seen in its best specimens. The 
average weight of his sheep, at from 13 to 15 months old, was 
about 126 lbs., and the average yield of wool per head, about 
6 lbs. 




SOUTH DOWN EWES. 



Choice specimens of Mr. E "man's sheep were imported into 
the United States some years since by Mr. John Hare Powell, 
of Pennsylvania, Francis Rotch, Esq., of New York, and 
various other breeders. Mr. Webb's have also been exten- 



* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. 16, p. 233. 
3* 



58 SOUTH DOWN SIIEEP. 

sively imported by Mr. Thome of New York, Mr. Alexander 
of Kentucky, Mr. Taylor of New Jersey, and others. It is 
understood that the leading American importers left no sheep 
in England superior to those purchased by them. 

M r. Thorne furnished me the following facts in regard to 
his flock, in answer to inquiries which embraced all the 
subjects touched upon by him : 

" My flock of South Downs consists of something over 200 
head, exclusive of lambs. They are descended from fourteen 
different importations, principally from the flock of the late 
Jonas Webb. Those not of his breeding were prize pens at 
the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and 
bred by Henry Lugar, of llengrave, near Bury St. Edmunds. 
The rams used have all been selected with the greatest cave 
from the celebrated Babraham flock. 'Archbishop' is the 
one which is now being principally used. He was the first 
prize yearling at the Royal Show at Canterbury in 1 800, and 
was chosen by myself from Mr. Webb's folds as the best 
ram he then had. His price there w r as $1,250. He was 
imported in December, 1860. 

"The breeding ewes average from 80 to 100 in number. 
They usually lamb in March. The rate of increase for the 
past six years has been 142 per cent. This year (1863) it has 
been 158. As soon as the lambs straighten up, they are 
docked, and the males that are not to be kept for service arc 
castrated. They are weaned at about four months old. The 
ewe and wether lambs are given good, short pastures,* and 
the ram lambs are folded on rape and kept there until all 
stock is housed. Frost (unless perhaps a very severe one) 
does not appear to injure the plant, and hence they can be 
kept upon it longer than on grass. They are confined to this 
feed, unless a few small ones may require grain, which some- 
times is given to the lot. When put in winter quarters the 
wethers have hay and roots : the others have in addition a 
little grain. The breeding ewes are kept on hay until two 
months before lambing, when they are given a small feed of 
corn which is soon increased to half a pint each per day. 
When they lamb they are given turnips instead of grain. The 
wethers [yearlings] are given good pasturage the next season 
and feed is commenced as soon as the slightest frost makes its 
appearance, half a pint of corn to each. When put in the 

* In another letter, Mr. Thorne says : "My own experience has eonvinred me that 
it la not advisable to put lambs upon new seeds, or after growth from new meadows, 
whore the growth has been very rank." 



HAMPSHIRE DOAVN SHEEP. 59 

sheds they are given turnips and the corn is increased to a 
pint each. They arc marketed generally at Christmas. They 
usually dress from 75 to 100 lbs. This year 75 that were sold 
to Bryan Lawrence of New York averaged in weight 87 \ lbs. 

" With regard to the wool-producing qualities of the South 
Down, the one year that I kept an accurate account, the ewe 
flock, including among the number sheep eight and nine years 
old, all having suckled lambs, gave 6 lbs. 5 \ oz. ; the yearling 
ewes 8 lbs. 12 oz. ; the yearling rams from 8 to 12 lbs. This 
was unwashed wool, though as you are aware, their wool is 
not of a greasy character, and should not be shrunk at the 
most over one-fourth, by the buyer. 

" You may remember to have seen some notices of the sales 
of Jonas Webb's South Downs. The first sale, in 1861, 
included all the flock except lambs, and numbered 200 rams 
and 770 ewes. They brought £10,926. The balance were sold 
in 1862, and numbered 148 rams and 289 ewes. Amount of 
sale, £5,720. Total two years sales, more than $80,000."* 

Mr. Thorne further writes me: — "Breeding ewes require 
exercise ; I have always considered it more to the advantage 
of meadows than of sheep that they should be yarded." His 
sheep have been extremely healthy. The only prevalent 
disease among them has been puerperal or parturient fever, at 
lambing. Prior to 1859 he had but one or two cases a year, 
but that year twenty, and four ewes died. This was his worst 
year, and under a new mode of treatment the disease is 
apparently entirely disappearing from his flock. It never, 
however, was confined to his flock or family of sheep, he 
informs me, but has been a prevalent disease among sheep of 
all kinds in the neighborhood, though often called by other 
names. 

The ram, a cut of which is given on page 56, is "Arch- 
bishop," already mentioned, bred by Mr. Jonas Webb, and 
owned by Mr. Thorne. The ewes, cuts of Avhich are given on 
2^age 57, are a pair of two-year olds bred by Mr. Thorne from 
his imported stock. 

Hampshire Downs. — Professor Wilson thus describes the 
Hampshire Downs : 

" This rapidly increasing breed of sheep appears to be the 
result of a recent cross between the pure South Down and the 
old horned white-face sheep of Hampshire and Wiltshire, by 
which the hard-working, though fine quality, of the former is 

* This letter is tfated Thorndale, Washington Hollow, N. Y., April 3. 1863. 



60 HAMPSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 

combined with the superior size and constitution of the latter. 
The breed was commenced at the early part of the present 
century ; and by a system of judicious crossing now possesses 
the leading characteristics of the two parent breeds. In some 
of the best farmed districts of Wiltshire, Hampshire and 
Berkshire, they have gradually displaced the South Downs, 
and have in themselves afforded another distinct breed for 
crossing with the long-wooled sheep. Their leading character- 
istics are, as compared with the South Down, an increased size, 
equal maturity, and a hardier constitution. The face and head 
are larger and coarser in their character ; the frame is heavier 
throughout ; the carcass is long, roomy, though less symmetrical 
than the South Down, and the wool of a coarser though 
longer staple. Their fattening propensity is scarcely equal to 
that of the South Down. These points have all received great 
attention lately from the breeders; and the improved Hamp- 
shire Down now possesses, both in shape, quality of wool, 
aptitude to fatten and early maturity, all the qualities for which 
the pure South Down has been so long and so justly celebrated. 
The lambs are usually dropped early and fed for the markets 
as lambs, or kept until the following spring, when, if well fed, 
they weigh from 80 to 100 lbs., and command a good market. 

" The Hampshire Downs are used like the South Downs for 
the purpose of crossing with other breeds ; being hardier in 
constitution they are perhaps better calculated for the Northern 
districts, where the climate is sometimes very severe." 

Mr. Spooner, in a paper "On Cross Breeding," published in 
the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 
1859, expresses opinions of this variety of sheep very similar 
to those above given by Professor Wilson, and he makes ,the 
following remarks in relation to their origin and blood : 

"We have no reason to suppose that after a few generations 
the Hampshire breeders continued to use the South Down* 
rams ; as soon as the horns were gone, to which perhaps, the 
Berkshire Notts contributed, and the face had become black, 
they employed their own cross-bred rams with the cross-bred 
ewes. If then we were asked what original blood predomi- 
nated in the Hampshire sheep, we should unquestionably say 
the South Down ; but if the further question were put, is the 
present 'need derived from the South Down and the original 
Hampshire alone, we should express a doubt as to such a 

* Mr. Spooner in several instances terms (hem "Sussex" in the remarks I quote, 
meaning thereby South Down ; and to prevent confusion among those not used to the 
former name, 1 have changed it in every instance to South Down. 



SHROPSHIRE DOWK SHEEP. 61 

conclusion, as there is good reason to consider that some 
improved Cotswold blood has been infused." 

After giving some facts to prove that this last cross was 
taken, Mr. Spooner continues : 

"Although after dipping once or twice into this breed, they 
then ceased to do so, yet they have continued breeding from 
the descendants of the oross, and thus in very many of the 
Hampshire and Wiltshire flocks, there is still some improved 
Cotswold, and consequently Leicester blood.* Probably an 
increase of wool has thus been obtained. Some say that on 
the borders of Berkshire the Berkshire Nott was also used, 
and others contend, although without proof, that a dip of the 
Leicester has been infused. Be this as it may there is no doubt 
that, although for some years past the Hampshire sheep have, 
for the most part, been kept pure, yet they have been very 
extensively crossed with other breeds before this period. "f 

A ram and five ewes of this family, bred by Francis Budd, 
Esq., of Hampshire, England, and which had been successful 
competitors at the Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, were imported in 1855 by Mr. Thomas Messenger, of 
Clarence Hall, Great Neck, Long Island. They have received 
first prizes from the State Agricultural Society, from the 
American Institute, and from various other Societies ; and 
they found a rapid sale in the South prior to the present war. 
Mr. Messenger writes me that he finds them better suited to 
the climate where he resides, and more hardy, than the South 
Downs. He breeds them pure, and also crosess them with 
Cotswolds and Leicesters, with great advantage, in his opinion, 
to both the latter families of sheep. 

The Shropshire Downs, — Shropshire or Shrops, as they 
are variously called, are thus described by Professor Wilson : 

"In ©ur early records of sheep farming, Shropshire is 
described as possessing a peculiar and distinct variety of sheep, 
to which the name of 'Morfe Common' sheep was given, 
from the locality to which the breed was principally confined. 
* * In 1792, when the Bristol Wool Society procured 

as much information as possible regarding sheep in England, 
they reported as follows in reference to the Morfe Common 
breed : — ' On Morfe Common, near Bridgenorth, which con- 
tains about 600,000 acres, there are about 10,000 sheep kept 

* In a note Mr. Spooner here states that it is "generally acknowledged that the 
Cotswold sheep have been improved by crosses from the Leicester ram." 
t Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, Vol. 20, page 302. 



62 



SHROPSHIRE DOWN SnEEP. 



during the summer months, -which produce wool of superior 
quality. They are considered, a native breed — are black-faced 
or brown, or a spotted faced, horned sheep, little subject to 
either rot or scab — weighing, the wethers from 11 to 14 lbs., 












SHROPSHIRE RAM. 

and the ewes from 9 to 11 lbs. per quarter, after being fed 
with clover and turnips ; and clipping nearly 2 lbs. per fleece, 
exclusive of the breeching, which maybe taken at one-seventh 
or one-eighth part of the whole.' * * Thjs appears 
to have been the original stock from which the present breed of 
Shropshire Downs has sprung. As the county advanced, and 
the breeds became valuable for their carcasses as well as for 
their wool, the Morfe Common sheep were crossed with other 
breeds, but more particularly with the long-wooled Leicesters 
and Cotswolds, or the short- wooled South Downs. The 
admixture of such different blood has produced a corresponding 
variation in the characters of the present breed of Shropshire 
Downs, and has tended materially to sustain the hesitation 
which still exists to allow them a place as a distinct breed.* 

* This was written in 1856. 



SHROPSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 63 

Where, however, the original cross was with the South Down, 
and the breed has been continued unmixed with the long- 
wooled sheep, they present the characteristics of a short- 
wooled breed, and as such are already recognized in the 
Yorkshire and other markets. * * * These sheep 
are without hoi-ns, with faces and legs of a gray or spotted 
gray color; the neck is thick with excellent scrag; the head 
well shaped, rather small than large, with ears well set on ; 
breast broad and deep ; back straight, with good carcass ; 
hind quarters hardly so wide as the South Down, and the legs 
clean with stronger bone. They are very hardy, thrive 
Avell on moderate keep, and are rapidly prepared for market 
as tegs, [between weaning and shearing,] weighing on the 
average 80 lbs. to 100 lbs. each. The meat is of excellent 
quality, and commands the best juices. The ewes are prolific 
and good mothers. The fleece, which is heavier than the 
South Down, is longer and more glossy in the staple than the 
other short wools, and weighs on the average 7 lbs." 

Mr. Spooner says of them that they were first brought into 
national repute at the Shrewsbury Meeting, in 1845. He 
remarks: — "At the Chester Meeting they beat the Hamp- 
shire Downs as old sheep, but in their turn were conquered 
by the latter in the younger classes. They present themselves 
to our notice in a more compact form ; though shorter they 
are wider, broader on the heart and deeper through the 
heart." Mr. Spooner quotes Mr. J. Meire, as having stated 
at a meeting of the Farmers' Club in Shropshire, [in 1858 or 
1859,] that the sheep produced by the cross between the 
original sheep and South Down " was well adapted for the 
downs, but for the inclosures of Shropshire something more 
docile was required, consequently recourse was had to the 
Leicester." And Mr. Spooner adds: — "This crossing and 
recrossing at length gave place to the practice of careful 
selection, and thus uniformity was sought for and attained, 
and the present superior breed was established. It is now 
held that no further cross is required." 

Mr. Charles Howard of Biddenham, Bedfordshire, in an 
address delivered before the London or Central Farmers' 
Club, in 1860, said: 

"This breed has been established by a prudent selection 
of the breeding animals, and I learn from a gentleman who 
kindly favored me with information upon the point, that the 
late Mr. Meire was the first to improve upon the original 
type. This he did in the first place by the use of the Leicester ; 



64 



SlIllOrSIIIRE DOWN SHEEP. 



as their faces became white he would then have recourse to a 
South Down or other dark-faced sheep. It was, however, 
Left to the son to carry out and to bring to a successful issue 
what the father had commenced, and Mr. Samuel Meire no 
doubt may be looked upon as the founder of the improved 
Shropshire Downs. We gather from his address to the 
Wenlock Farmers' Club that he accomplished this, not by 
resorting to any of the established breeds, but by using the 
best animals from his own large flock. * * Lately a 
very great change has come over the breeders of Shropshire ; 
they have availed themselves of larger sheep of heavier fleece 
and earlier maturity, so that the only affinity they bear to the 
original Shrop are dark faces and legs ; they now pride them- 
selves in exhibiting some well fatted shearlings [yearlings 
past,] weighing upon times 22 lbs. to 24 lbs. per quarter, but 
this is not general. 




SIIilOPSIIIKE DOWX EWE. 



Very fine specimens of this variety have been imported 
into the United States and Canada. The two animals repre- 
sented in the foregoing cuts are owned by Hon. N. L. Chaffee, 



OXFORDSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 65 

of Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio. The ram, "Lion," 
now three years old, was bred by Lord Berwick, of Shrews- 
bury, England, and imported in 1861. His live weight is 334 
lbs., and he yielded on the 16th of May, 1863, 17 lbs. 5 oz. of 
washed wool of 11* months growth. The ewe, "Nancy," was 
bred by Lord Berwick, and imported at the same time. She 
is three years old, and her live weight is 241 lbs. On the 16th 
of May, 1863, she yielded 9 lbs. 3 oz. of washed wool of 11 J 
months growth. Six ewes at the same time, and under the 
same circumstances, yielded 42 lbs. 5 oz. of wool. They were 
sheared the fifth day after washing in clear brook water. 

In answer to my inquiries on the subject, Judge Chaffee 
writes me that these, sheep were imported by Mr. George 
Miller, of Markham, Canada West; that they are very 
hardy, healthy and easily kept ; and that they excel in these 
particulars all his other sheep, of which he has four kinds. 
He says : 

" They are nearly as large as the long-wooled breed, say 
Cotswolds or Leicesters, and yielding just about the same 
quantity of wool, are in my judgment much more hardy and 
healthy. They have the dark colored legs and face of the 
South Down ; much longer, thicker and more compact fleeces 
than the South Downs, and much thicker and more compact 
ones than the long-wooled breeds. They have all the nice, 
round, compact frame, and even, uniform symmetry of appear- 
ance of the South Down, and are about 33 per cent, heavier. 
I have never slaughtered any of this breed, and cannot speak 
from personal knowledge as to the quality of their mutton, 
but it is said, by those who do know, to be very superior and 
hardly to be excelled by the South Down." 

The Oxfordshire Downs. — This is a new family of 
sheep, and I take the following account of its origin from the 
already quoted address of Mr. Charles Howard, delivered 
before the London Farmers' Club. Mr. Howard is a well 
known breeder of them. He says : 

" The ' Oxfordshire Downs' are what are commonly styled 
cross-bred sheep ; but their patrons, in 1857, determined upon 
giving them a definite name. Hence their new title, the 
propriety of which is demurred to by some; for its only 
similarity to a Down is its color, while its size and fleece 
partake more of the long -wool — important qualities, which 
have been long and carefully cultivated by the promoters of 
this breed. They were originally produced by crossing the 



66 OXFORDSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 

Hampshire and in some instances South Down ewe with a 
Cots wold ram — most commonly the former, for it gave 
increased size — and the putting the crosses together : by con- 
stant attention and weeding, a most successful result has been 
accomplished, producing a kind of sheep that possess, with 
uniformity of character and hardiness of constitution, large 
frames, good fleeces, aptitude to fatten, and mutton of superior 
quality." 

Mr. Howard quotes the Messrs. Druce, father and son, who 
were among the leading originators and most successful 
exhibitors of the variety, as publishing the fact that their flock 
originated from a cross between the South Down and 
Cots wold. The younger Druce says: — "The flocks generally 
drop their lambs in the month of February, and at 1 3 or J 4 
months old they are ready for market, weighing upon an 
average 10 stones [140 lbs.] each, with a fleece varying from 
7 to 10 lbs. The ewes are good mothers and produce a great 
proportion of twins." Mr. Druce, senior, commenced this 
cross in 1833. Mr. Hitchman, an extremely successful breeder 
and exhibitor of them, started five years earlier, crossing 
the Hampshire Down and Cots wold. His tegs [weaned 
lambs] when shorn would average, in 1860, eleven stone 
[154 lbs.,] and his entire clip of wool 7 lbs. per fleece. 

These sheep were first introduced into the United States 
by Richard S. Fay, Esq., of Lynn, Massachusetts, and the 
Hon. William C. Rives, of Virginia, wiio selected and 
imported their sheep together. Mr. Fay had a considerable 
extent of rough pasturage better adapted to sheep than other 
animals, and he first stocked it with fine-wooled sheep and 
subsequently with crosses between them and South Downs. 
Neither experiment resulted satisfactorily. A residence of 
several years in England induced him to turn his attention to 
the English breeds, and he came to the conclusion that they 
would better answer his purposes. Living two years among 
the Shropshires he was highly pleased with them, but on 
going to see Mr. Gillet's and Mr. Druce's Oxfordshire Downs 
he gave them the preference, and purchased and sent home a 
ram and ten ewes of this family. He subsequently imported 
several other lots for David Sears, Jr., of Boston, and for 
himself. Mr. Fay, in answer to my inquiries, informs me that 
these sheep fully meet his expectations — that they are of good 
constitution, and " take to his briars and rough pastures as if 
' to the manor born.' " He has no difficulty in raising all 
their lambs, dropped in March, and the ewes are many of 



OXFORDSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 67 

them then fit for the butcher. The mutton, killed from his 
rocky, rough pastures, in November, is of very high quality. 
His ewes, in 1862, averaged 8? lbs. to the fleece, unwashed — 
the average weight of the shorn ewes being 135 lbs. and rams 
220 lbs. The yield of lambs was 160 per cent, on the number 
of breeding ewes. In 1863 the yield of wool fell to a small 
fraction under 8 lbs., and the increase of lambs rose to 175 
per cent.* His wethers yield on the average fully 10 lbs. of 
wool. At my request, Mr. Fay forwarded me specimens of 
their wool. The first was taken from a ram two years old, 
weighing 220 lbs., and his fleece this year weighed 12 lbs. 10 
oz. The wool is about 8 inches long. The ewe, three years 
old, with two ram lambs at her side nearly two months old, 
weighed 136 lbs., and her fleece 8 lbs. The wool is over 7 
inches long ; the quality in both instances is rather fine for 
wool of such length ; it has a good luster ; is neither hairy 
nor harsh ; and it has a very desirable quality for certain 
fabrics, and will always command a ready sale.f 

These sheep have gray faces and legs, lighter colored than 
those of the South Downs. They partake of the admirable 
forms of their parent stocks; are gentle and disinclined to 
rove ; but they are willing to work hard for their feed, and 
are very promiscuous feeders. They make excellent returns 
for their feed and mature very early. 



* Every practical sheep farmer understands of course that a nursing ewe yields 
considerably less wool than a dry one, and that the fleece is still more diminished by a 
ewe's nursing two lambs. 

1 1 made special inquiries in regard to this wool, and detail the result, when I 
have not done so in regard to the other English families, because the Oxfordshire 
Downs are of more recent origin, and far less is generally known of them in our 
country, in this particular. 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE POINTS TO BE EEGAEDED IN FLNE-WOOLED SHEEP. 

CARCASS — SKIN — FOLDS OE WRINKLES — FLEECE — FINENESS 

EVENNESS TRITENESS AND SOUNDNESS PLIANCY AND 

SOFTNESS — STYLE AND LENGTH OF WOOL. 

Whether in purchasing sheep for the establishment of 
flocks, or in carrying on the breeding of existing flocks, it is 
necessary to have a clear knowledge of those points which 
constitute the peculiar excellencies of the chosen variety. 
With respect to the English mutton breeds, this information 
was placed before the world with all the precision and 
accuracy of combined scientific and practical knowledge, by 
the late Mr. Youatt — by far the most comprehensive and 
able investigator in this department of knowledge, and also 
in the veterinary art, the world has yet known. The new 
discoveries, advances, or changes in public taste, which have 
taken place in breeding the English sheep since his day, have 
been carefully described by Mr. Spooner, Professor Wilson, 
and various other writers, in the English Agricultural 
periodicals, particularly by the authors of the prize essays 
published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
In one form or another, all these publications have become 
widely known to the American public. They are to be found 
in every considerable library. Our American works on sheep 
have been — at least so far as English breeds are concerned — 
but reprints of them. Our universally disseminated Agricul- 
tural Journals have spread all their most important contents 
broadcast throughout our country. 

The fine-wooled or Merino sheep has been made the 
subject of comparatively little accurate and detailed 
investigation and description. Spain, the native land of this 
breed, has no literature which pertains to sheep.* In Great 

* Though much that pertains to shepherds and shepherdesses! Cervantes several 
times makes himself merry over the pastoral literature of Spain. Spoaking of his own 



CARCASS OF THE MERINO. 69 

Britain the Merino was soon found not to meet the requirements 
of the market and prevailing systems of agriculture; and its 
breeding has been but little pursued there. In France and 
Germany considerable has been written concerning it, but 
most of it is inapplicable here, because the standards of 
excellence adopted in each of those countries differ essentially 
from those accepted in our own. Indeed, our own standards 
have materially changed within a few years, owing to 
circumstances already mentioned. It is for this last reason 
that the valuable works on Sheep Husbandry which have 
appeared in the United States do not furnish full information 
in regard to those points of the Merino sheep which now best 
meet the requirements of the market and the interests of the 
grower. This information is the more needful at a moment 
when multitudes of comparatively inexperienced persons, 
under the stimulus of an extraordinary demand for wool, are 
engaging in its production.* 

Carcass. — Carcass is undoubtedly the first point to be 
regarded, even in the fine-wooled sheep, for on its form and 
constitution depends the health of the animal. Good medium 
size, for the family, is the most desirable one under ordinary 
circumstances, for with that size generally go the best 
development of the parts and the greatest degree of vigor. 
The body should be round and deep, not over long, and both 
the head and neck short and thick. The back should be 
straight and broad ; the bosom and buttock full ; the legs 
short, well apart, straight and strong, with heavy forearm 
and fulness in the twist. I decidedly incline to the opinion 
that it is not advisable to attempt to bring all our American 
Merinos to the same standard of size. There are now two 
well marked families — the Infantado, which have beeft bred 
large, and the Paulars, which have been kept a size or two 
smaller and shorter. The former are for the rich lands, the 



" Galatea," he says many of its shepherds and shepherdesses are only such in their 
costume; and this describes all the pastoral romance and poetry of Spain from 
Montemayor's "Diana Enamorada" down to Lope de Vega's "Arcadia." If there is 
a book in the Spanish tongue on the practical topics of Sheep Husbandry I have never 
heard of it ! . . . 

* The prices of pure Merino sheep were nearly as high, and in some cases higher, 
during the fall and winter of 1802-63 than they were between 1S0S and 1815. Consider- 
able ilocks of ewes were sold at $100 a head, and small numbers at every intermediate 
price between this and $300. $400, or even $500, a head. One breeder sold some ewes 
at $000 and declined much higher offers for favorite individuals. He declined an offer 
of $20,000 for 50 ewes. Had they been sold, the purchaser was to receive $15,000 for 
half of them from other parties. I state this on the authority of the person making 
the offer, Mr. A. M. Clark, of St. Albans, Vermont. Choice rams sold for $500 to $600, 
and for one or two very celebrated ones $2,500 a piece could have been taken. 



70 SKIX FOLDS OK WKINKLES. 

latter for the more elevated and sterile ones. They hear 
the same relation to each other in this particular that is 
reciprocally borne by the Short-Horn and Devon cattle. Of 
the crosses between them, I shall have occasion to speak 
hereafter. 

The Skik. — The skin should be of a deep, rosy color. 
The Spaniards justly regarded this a point of much 
importance, as indicative of the easy-keeping and fattening 
properties of the animal, and of a healthy condition of the 
system. The skin should be thinnish, mellow, elastic, and 
particularly loose on the carcass. A white skin, when the 
animal is in health, or a tawny one, is rarely found on a 
high bred Merino. A thick, stiff, inelastic skin, like that found 
on many badly bred French sheep, is highly objectionable. 

Folos oe "Wrinkles." — The Spanish, French ami 
German breeders approved of folds in the skin, considering 
them indications of a heavy fleece. The French have bred 
them over the entire bodies of many of their sheep. To this 
extent, and especially when prominent, firm to the feel, and 
incapable of being drawn smooth imder the shears, they are 
an unmitigated nuisance, both in appearance and reality. If 
they bear additional wool, this is counter-balanced by its 
defective quality on the upper edges of the folds and the great 
unevenness they thereby give the fleece; and were this 
otherwise, the additional amount would not half compensate 
for the loss of time in shearing, in the " catching " weather of 
the spring, when good shearers are so difficult to obtain. It 
would be vastly more economical to keep one or two per cent. 
more sheep, to obtain the same amount of wool. But I must 
confep that among the thousands of these disfigured animals 
which I have examined, I never yet saw one which presented 
the maximum of both length and density of wool, or yielded 
the maximum in weight of fleece. For reasons which I 
cannot explain, the wool, thougli often very thick between the 
folds, is never very long; and it is usually comparatively 
loose, dryish and light as well as coarse, on the outer edges 
of the folds. 

A wide dew-lap, plaited or smooth, single or branching 
into two parts under the jaws, with "the cross" on the 
brisket, were all that the older breeders of Merinos desired 
in this way, on ewes. To these might be added moderate 
corrugations on the neck of the ram. Now, fashion calls for 



FLEECE OF THE MEKINO. 71 

hefivy folds on the neck of the ram and more moderate sized 
ones on the neck of the ewe — but few besides a class of 
extremists desire these to extend in great, prominent rolls 
over the upper side of the neck. The cross extended into 
a pendulous "apron" — a short fold or two on and immediately 
back of each elbow — some small curling ones on and uniting 
with the edges of the tail, (so as to give it a corrugated 
appearance, and twice its natural breadth,) some smallish ones 
uniting on the breech under the tail, and riuining in the 
direction of lines drawn from the tail to the stifle, or perpen- 
dicular ones up and down the back edges of the thighs, which, 
when the wool is grown, close over the twist — a wide plaited 
fold of loose corrugated skin running up the front edge of the 
thigh and across the lower edge of the flank, so as to give 
both the appearance of extraordinary breadth — and finally a 
general looseness of the skin, which disposes it to lie in small, 
rounded, very slightly elevated and perfectly soft ridges 
over the body, giving it a crinkled appearance, but offering 
no obstruction whatever to the shears, and not showing 
on the surface of the fleece — are now the points, in these 
regards, which constitute the ideal of the Merino breeder. 

Fleece. — The greatest attainable combination of length 
and thickness of wool, of the given quality, is the first point 
to be regarded in a market where all lengths are in equal 
demand. And the more evenly this length and thickness 
extend over every covered part, unless below the knees and 
hocks, the higher the excellence of the animal. It is in this 
point especially that the modern breeder has improved on his 
predecessors ; and it is this, in a very considerable degree, 
which gives the improved American Merino its vast supe- 
riority in weight of fleece over all other fine sheep, of the 
same size, in the world. 

Wool of full length below the knees and hocks would hardly 
be desirable on account of its liability to become filthy, — but 
a thick, shortish coat, particularly on the hind legs, making 
them appear " as large as a man's arm," is regarded by most 
as a fine, showy point— though it does not add much to the 
value of the fleece. The wool should extend in an unbroken 
and undivided mass from the back of the neck over the top of 
the head and down the face for an inch or two below the eyes, 
and there abruptly terminate in a square or rounded shape ; 
it should cover the lower side of the jaws nearly to the mouth, 
and rise on the cheeks so as to leave only the front face bare, 



72 FINENESS OF MERINO WOOL. 

terminating abruptly like the forehead wool. The cheek and 
forehead wool should meet unbroken immediately over the 
eye and between it and the horn and ear.* But it must by 
no means unite under the eye — though its outside ends may 
touch there for a little way. The eye should have just naked 
space enough about it to leave the sight unimpeded, without 
any resort to the scissors. The nose should be covered with 
short, soft, thick, perfectly white hair. Pale, tan-colored 
spots or " freckles " about the mouth, and the same color on 
the outer half of the ear,f are not objected to by the breeders 
of the Paulars — but Infantado breeders usually prefer pure 
white. Wool on the lower part of the front face, as is often 
seen in the French Merinos, whether short or long, is 
regarded as decidedly objectionable, and any wool which 
obstructs the sight in any degree, is a fault. 

The cavities of the fleece at the arm-pits, at the base of the 
scrotum, and inside of the arms and thighs, should be as small 
as the proper freedom of movement admits. The scrotum 
should be densely covered with wool to its lower extremity, 
and the wool on the front of it should extend up so as to 
unite with the belly wool. 

The wool should stand at right angles to the surface, 
except on the inside of the legs and on the scrotum (and the 
nearer it approaches doing so on the scrotum the better) ; it 
should present a dense, smooth, even surface externally, drop- 
ping apart nowhere ; and the masses of wool between those 
natural cracks or divisions which are always seen on the 
surface, should be of medium diameter. If they are too small, 
they indicate a fineness of fleece which is incompatible with 
its proper weight ; if too large, they indicate coarse, harsh wool. 

Fineness. — Without having regard to the present anom- 
alous state of affairs, which has temporarily so changed the 

* If it unites in a thick, solid mass of full length, it is a beautiful and now rather 
rare point. 

t These spots were highly characteristic of several of the families of Merinos 
originally imported from Spain ; and the lambs of some of them were occasionally 
covered over the carcass at birth with larger spots of the same color, or of a deeper tawny 
red. Sometimes the whole body was thus colored. But all these tints disappeared on 
the body when the wool grew out, and were seen no more. Small black spots were 
frequently seen about the mouths of Spanish sheep and larger ones on different parts of 
the body, and coal-black lambs were sometimes yeaned. This color often fades but 
never disappears. Black lambs are now exceedingly rare in pure American Merino 
flocks, yet they continue to appear. They are always excluded from the flock to pre- 
vent their increase, as they are regarded as unsightly and their wool is less valuable. 
All the different colors above mentioned are inherited by the Spanish sheep from 
their original stocks,— from the black, red, and tawny sheep which Pliny, Columella, 
and other contemporaneous writers describe as existing in Spain about the opening of 
the first century. 



EVENNESS OF MERINO WOOL. 73 

relative value of our fine and coarse wools, it is known to all 
conversant with the subject, that uniformly and under all 
circumstances, there has been a much greater demand for 
medium than for very fine wools in the American Wool 
Market; and the table of prices presently to be given will 
show that the former have always borne a more remunerating 
price than the latter to the producer. This was true even 
before our broad-cloth manufactories sunk under the horizontal 
tariff of 1846. Before that time, by far the greater portion of 
our home manufactured woolens did not require staples above 
medium in quality. And of late years fashion has lent its aid 
still further to reduce the demand for the finer staples. There 
has been a steadily increasing tendency among our best 
dressed and most fashionable population to substitute for the 
broadcloths and fine black cassimeres formerly worn for dress, 
comparatively coarse cassimeres of various, and among the 
young, of "fancy" colors. 

All these causes combined have turned the domestic 
demand for wools above the grade of coarse, principally into 
a channel where the requirements of the market are met, and 
most profitably met for the producer, by the heavy-fleeced 
American Merino. Should our manufactories of broadcloths 
and other fine textures revive, as it is to be hoped they may, 
so far as to supply the domestic demands for such fabrics, 
there will be an additional call for finer wool, and this will 
necessarily increase the demand for finer sheep. 

Evenness. — Evenness of quality throughout the fleece, so 
far as it is attainable, is one of the best results as well as 
proofs of good breeding. Those usually short, detached, not 
very coarse, glistening particles of hair found in the fleece, 
termed "jar," are very objectionable — though they mostly 
drop out in the different processes to which wool is subjected 
in manufacturing. They are not so objectionable, however, 
as that long, strong, rooted hair which crops out through the 
wool on the thighs and on the edges of the folds — particularly 
where the latter run over the neck and shoulders in very large 
prominent rolls. I would not reject an otherwise valuable 
ewe, of known purity of blood, because half a dozen hairs 
barely showed themselves on the back edge of and half way 
down the thigh — though I would much prefer not to see them 
there, and I would breed such a ewe to a ram which would 
be sure to leave no such bad mark on the common progeny. 
But I would much dislike to breed from a ram exhibiting 
4 



74 TRUENESS SOUNDNESS — PLIANCY. 

that defect to the least degree. Rams which have very larr/e 
folds on the xqyper side of the neck, are very apt to exhibit 
more or less hairs on them, and I have occasionally seen this 
in animals of good blood and good reputation as sire rams. 
It must be regarded, however, as a serious defect — though 
not as inexcusable as the cropping out of hairs on other parts 
of the body, either singly or in masses. This indicates bad 
blood or breeding. 

Triteness and Soundness. — Wool should be of the same 
diameter or fineness from root to point. This is termed 
"trueness." On a poor sheep it grows finer, on a fat one 
coarser. Consequently a change of condition in either direc- 
tion correspondingly changes the diameter of the same fiber 
during different stages of its growth. The difference is 
sometimes visible to the naked eye. When the change of 
condition has been great — especially when it takes place 
from a low and unhealthy state to a healthy and fleshy one — 
it generally occasions "a joint" in the wool, — i. e., the place 
in the fibers where the change began, is so weak that a slight 
pull will detach the two parts. Indeed, they often separate 
on the back of the animal and the whole outer part is shed 
off. Untrue or jointed wool is not so valuable for various 
manufactures, and the different parts of it do not receive 
certain dyes equally. The entire fiber of the wool produced 
on a diseased sheep, whether it is true or not, usually lacks 
the proper strength. The same is the case with the wool of 
very old. and very lean sheep. Wool to be "sound" must be 
strong, firm and elastic. 

Pliancy and Softness. — Among full-blood, healthy 
animals, in fair condition, the pliancy and softness of wool 
usually correspond in degree with its fineness. Where they 
do not, I should always seriously distrust pretentions to purity 
of blood. Some allowances, however, are to be made for 
modes of keeping. Sheep sheltered from storms and violent 
atmospheric changes, have softer wool than those habitually 
exposed to them. Disease, old age and excessive leanness 
give a drier and "wirier" feeling to avooI. But whether this 
feeling arises from natural or artificial causes, it indicates 
inferiority of quality. Fabrics made of such materials have 
less softness and elasticity, fret or fray more readily, and 
break sooner at corners and on the edges of folds. They 
admit of less finish, and take less rich, lustrous colors. They 



STYLE — LENGTH OP WOOL. 75 

are therefore neither so beautiful, nor so good for actual wear. 
Pliancy and softness are so inseparably connected with the 
other best properties of 'wool, that a thoroughly practiced 
person can readily determine its general quality by handling 
it in the dark . Indeed, where the quality is very high, it can 
be detected by the first touch of the hand. It has an 
exquisite downiness of feel which is unmistakable. 

Style. — Style means that combination of appearances 
which indicates choice wool — viz., fineness, cleai*ness of color, 
luster, regularity and distinctness of "crimp" — that curved 
and graceful form and arrangement of the locks and fibers in 
the sheared fleece which indicate extreme pliancy (stiff, harsh 
wool is straighter,) and that life-like movement on handling 
and peculiar re-adjustment of the fibers after handling which 
is occasioned by their sjfiral form and exquisite elasticity. 
Style cannot be satisfactorily described in words, but it is 
as palpable to experienced organs, and is as indicative of 
actual quality, as the most gross properties of wool — such as 
length, fineness, or coarseness, etc. 

I should remark that the highest style, like the highest 
fineness, softness, etc., belongs only to the smaller and more 
delicate families of the Merino, like the Electoral Saxon. 
Prime American Merino wool only approximates to these 
qualities. And another remark may not be out of place, in 
passing. The qualities of wool, even including fineness, can 
be more accurately determined by the natural eye than by the 
aid of powerful magnifying glasses. 

Length. — It has already been incidentally mentioned that 
fine wools of all lengths find an equally ready sale in our 
markets. Those which would have been regarded as too long 
for broadcloths when they were manufactured in this country, 
are more desirable for delaines, shawls, etc., than shorter 
wools. The American Merino wool, generally, I think, 
exceeds all other Merino wools in length. 

Mr. George Campbell, of West Westminister, Vermont, 
who recently, (June, 1863,) started Avith some sheep to 
exhibit at the World's Fair, at Hamburgh, some time before 
his departure inclosed me specimens of the wool of the ewes 
taken out by him. It was of about a year's growth. The 
longest sample, lying naturally on paper without a particle of 
stretching, measures 3^ inches in length; another measures 
3 1 ; another 3^; two of them 3; the shortest 2f. Mr. 



76 LENGTH OP MERINO WOOL. 

Campbell wrote to me: — "The sheep are neai-ly all of my own 
stock, which have been bred from the Jarvis and Humphreys 
importation, and recently from Mr. Hammond's flock." 

Mr. Prosper Elithorp, of Bridport, Vermont, recently sent 
me a number of samples of his own wool and that of Mr. O. 
B. Cook, of Charlotte, Vermont. Mr. Elithorp's, from ewes 
over one year old, and all having lambs, range from 2^ to 2§ 
inches long, and that of a ram is 3^ inches long, though all 
lack 45 days of a year's growth. A part of these ewes are 
Paulars and a part Infantados. Two of Mr. Cook's (one from 
a yearling and the other from a two year old ewe,) measure 
3^ inches long, and the rest (from yearlings,) from 2f to 2f 
inches. The sheep are pure Infantados. 

Mr. A. J. Stow, of West Cornwall Vermont, has for- 
warded me numerous specimens. The longest is 3f inches 
long, two of them are 3, and most of the remainder are about 
2f inches long. They are all from ewes over one year old, 
and the wool lacks three or four days of a year's growth. 
Mr. Stow says " they are all from his Hammond sheep." 

I have an old specimen of wool from a Paular ram, bred 
by one of the Robinson's, of Shoreham, Vermont, (and owned 
by Myrtle & Ackerson, of Steuben County, New York,) 
which measures 3^ inches long. 

The recent Vermont specimens above given are fairer tests 
of the length of the longer stapled American Merino wool, 
from the fact that they were not sent in any case as specimens 
of mere length, but of fleeces of extraordinary weight. And 
I think great length is not now usually particularly valued in 
any other connection. The sheep which yield the most 
extraordinary weights of fleece, indeed, rarely have extremely 
long wool, because such length is rarely accompanied by 
sufficient thickness. Mr. Hammond's "Sweepstakes," whose 
weight of fleece has probably never been excelled, yields 
wool not exceeding 2 \ inches long, and "21 percent.," several 
times named in this volume, probably never excelled in the 
proportion of wool to meat, yields wool 2§ inches long. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

YOLK CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF YOLK ITS USES PROPER 

AMOUNT AND CONSISTENCY OP IT ITS COLOR COLORING 

SHEEP ARTIFICIALLY — ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION AND PRES- 
ERVATION OF YOLK. 

Yolk. — This is that oily feeling fluid, or that sticky, 
pasty or half-hardened substance, within the wool, or that 
hard substance on the outer ends of the wool, which commonly 
receives the name of oil, grease, or gum. These appellations 
are obvious misnomers when we take its chemical constituents 
into consideration. 

Chemical Analysis of Yolk. — Vauquelin, a celebrated 
French chemist, found that various specimens of yolk con- 
tained about the same constituents: — 1. A soapy matter with 
a basis of potash, which formed a greater part of it. 2. A 
small quantity of carbonate of potash. 3. A perceptible 
quantity of acetate of potash. 4. Lime, whose state of 
combination he was unacquainted with. 5. An atom of 
muriate of potash. 6. An animal oil, to which he attributed 
the peculiar odor of yolk. He found the yolk of French and 
Spanish Merinos essentially the same. He assumed that the 
yolk in sheared wool injures it after a few months, if not 
scoured out. 

Uses of Yolk. — Yolk has been believed in all countries 
and times to promote the growth of wool and render it soft, 
pliant and healthy. It seems to me to have other and obvious 
uses.* The small, irregular -shaped masses of wool which 
adhere together in the unshorn fleece of the Merino sheep, and 
which are bounded externally by visible, permanent cracks, 



* I suggested these uses in my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, made in 
February, 1862. 



78 PKOPER AMOUNT AND CONSISTENCY OF YOLK. 

slide on each other with every movement of the animal ; so 
that, in effect, the cracks are the joints of the fleece. If dry 
and nnluhricated by the yolk, the friction of these sliding 
masses would, on the sides subjected to abrasion, wear or 
break oft* the tooth-like processes on the wool on which the 
felting property depends ; and this same effect would follow, 
whether to a greater or lesser degree, I am unable to say, on 
those coarse open fleeces in which, as in the covering of hairy 
animals, there is no such massing of the fibers and each slides 
separately on the surrounding ones. Again: if the wool was 
unlubricated, heavy rains, and the contact of the sheep with 
each other, with the ground and other substances, would 
cause felting on the back — a result now sometimes witnessed 
to a limited extent, and termed " cotting." 

Proper Amount and Consistency or Yolk. — Different 
opinions are entertained of the amount of yolk it is profitable 
to propagate in wool. If the fleece is sold unwashed, and 
according to the present general mode, at a fixed rate of 
shrinkage on that account, it is obviously the interest of the 
wool grower to produce as much yolk as is consistent with 
the greatest united production of wool and yolk. And even 
if wool is sold nominally "washed," it is evident that the 
same amount of washing will leave very yolky fleeces heavier 
than unyolky ones. Farmers have learned that if they can 
only say their wool is washed — no matter how washed — ten 
or fifteen per cent, more yolk than would be left by thorough 
washing, will not cause any corresponding deduction in the 
price. There are a class of experienced buyers, certainly, who 
do not purchase in this indiscriminate way, but as the wool 
business has constantly expanded and opened new oppor- 
tunities for the profitable investment of money, every year 
brings its fresh horde of raw, eager buyers — the agents of 
manufacturers or speculators, or persons speculating on their 
own account — and some of these always take the heavy, dirty 
wools at about the price of the clean ones. I shall allude to 
this topic again under subsequent heads. 

I esteem it particularly fortunate for the preservation of 
the intrinsic value of our Merino sheep, and fortunate for the 
public interest, that it is already incontestibly ascertained that 
the greatest amount of yolk is not consistent either with the 
greatest amount of wool, or with the greatest aggregate 
amount of both yolk and wool. The black, miserably "oily," 
" gummy" sheep, looking as if their wool had been soaked to 



PROPER AMOUNT AND CONSISTENCY OF WOOL. 79 

saturation in half inspissated oil, and then daubed over extern- 
ally with a coating of tar and lanrp-black, never exhibit that 
maximum of both length and density of wool which, with a 
proper degree of yolk, produces the greatest aggregate weight. 
Yolk has been generally thought to be the pabulum of wool 
and if so, its excessive secretions, as a separate substance, may 
diminish its secretions in the form of wool. Be this as it 
may, the fact I have stated stands without an exception. And 
animals exhibiting this marked excess of yolk, are invariably 
feebler in constitution, less easily kept, and especially less 
capable of withstanding severe cold. Such excessive secre- 
tions appear, then, to cause, or else to be the results of an 
abnormal or defective organization. For these reasons, these 
comparatively worthless animals, once so eagerly sought, have 
already gone out of use among the best informed breeders ; 
and where they linger, it is, like antiquated fashions, in 
regions where the current ideas of the day penetrate slowly ! 
There should be enough fluid yolk within the wool on the 
upper surfaces of the body, to cover every fiber like a brilliant, 
and, in warm weather, like an undried coat of varnish — but 
not enough to fill the interstices between them, so that the 
fleece shall appear, as it sometimes does, to be growing up 
through a bed of oil. And if there is a sufficiency of yolk 
above, it must be expected that underneath Avhere the fleece 
is less exposed to evaporation and the washing of rains, and 
to which part gravitation would naturally determine a fluid 
substance, a considerably greater quantity of it will be found. 
But hardened or pasty masses of it within the wool are to be 
avoided, on all parts of the body. A portion of the fluid 
yolk will necessarily inspissate or harden on the outer ends of 
the wool. It is proper that it should sensibly thicken those 
ends, and clot them together in small masses on the upper 
parts of the body — forming a coat considerably thicker, 
firmer and harder to the hand than would the naked wool, 
and quite rigid when exposed to cold; but it should not 
cover the wool in rounded knobs, or in thick, firmly adhering 
patches, bounded by the fleece cracks — sticking to the hand 
in hot weather like a compound of grease and tar, and in cold 
having a "board-like" stiffness. Underneath, for the same 
reasons given in reference to inside yolk, a greater quantity of 
it must be tolerated. It should stick the masses of wool 
together in front of the brisket and scrotum, and large 
rounded knobs of it inside the legs and thighs and on the 
back side of the scrotum, are considered desirable. 



80 PROPER COLOR OF YOLK. 

Color of Yolk. — The external yolk is occasionally- 
some what yellowish — of the tinge of dirty bees -wax — but 
more generally of some dark shade of brown, or what would 
more commonly be termed black. The darker color is 
preferred. All American Merino sheep having what is 
esteemed a sufficient amount of yolk, become very dark 
colored each year before the winter is far advanced, if they 
are housed from summer and winter storms after shearing. 
Rains Avash away the yolk and with it the color. But the yolk 
is soluble in different degrees in different families, and even on 
different animals of the same flock. The Paular (Rich) sheep 
hold their color uncommonly well ; the French rapidly bleach. 
It has been supposed that the black color is communicated to 
external yolk by dust, the pollen of hay, etc. These may 
contribute to the result, but I have recently learned from 
entirely reliable persons, who house their sheep in summer, 
that if kept entirely dry, they never assume their darkest 
color — that to obtain this, they must be exposed to dews, 
light sprinkles of rain, or the contents of the watering pot. 
The change in color, accordingly, is partly chemical. 

Internal yolk varies in color from a pure white to a deep 
yellow. It has been rather the fashion, in this country, siuce 
the days of the Saxon sheep, to breed for the former, and 
this is the prevailing color in the American Paulars. The 
breeders of the American Infantados, and of the Silesians, 
generally follow the old Spanish custom of giving preference 
to shades of yellow. A brilliant "golden tinge," faint or 
imperceptible near the roots of the wool, but deepening 
towards its outer extremities, is the one sought after. The 
founder of the improved Infantado family has, as already 
stated, bred steadily for that color; and he has done so not 
merely as a matter of taste, but under the impression that it 
betokens a vigorous growth of wool and general vigor of 
constitution — and particularly vigor of that kind, which 
exhibits itself in the forcible transmission of individual 
properties to progeny. But this "golden tinge" is not 
to be mistaken for the deep saffron yellow which attends 
cotting — or for a dull, dead yellow — or for a tawny bees- 
wax hue — or for the hue of "nankeen" cloth, sometimes seen 
in imperfectly bred animals. The favorite color among the 
French breeders is a creamy one. In answer to inquiries 
made by me, in 1862, several experienced manufacturers — all 
I consulted — concurred in the statement that the color of the 
yolk is not, in itself, a matter of any consequence, in reference 



COLORING SHEEP ARTIFICIALLY. 81 

to any of the objects of manufacturing; and that its quantity 
and consistency are only important in so far as they affect its 
weight and cause a loss in scouring. 

I have been speaking of the natural color of yolk. In 
many regions where sheep are not pastured on thoroughly 
sodded ground, the whole interior of the fleece becomes 
stained by dust to the prevailing color of the ground. This 
often occurs on our Western prairies. 

Coloring Sheep Artificially. — To give Merinos des- 
titute of it, a dark external color, they are sometimes painted. 
A coating of linseed oil and burnt umber, slightly darkened 
with lamp-black, neatly applied within a few weeks after 
shearing, can be distinguished from the natural dark coat of 
a housed sheep with some difficulty, by inexperienced eyes. 
But generally the sheep jockey overdoes the thing and excels 
nature ! He lays on the coat more evenly and more uniformly 
dark. It is said there are other preparations, with or without 
coloring matter, intended to give the fleece a thick, firm 
feeling, but I have not learned their composition. It is not 
necessary to remark that all such practices are rank frauds. 

Artificial Propagation and Preservation of Yolk. — 
Yolk is greatly increased in the fleece by high keep; and 
careful housing in summer, as well as winter, as I have 
repeatedly remarked, preserves it there. The objects and 
efl'ects of these practices will be alluded to hereafter. 



4* 



CHAPTER IX. 

ADAPTATION OF BEEEDS TO DIITEEENT SITUATIONS. 

MARKETS CLIMATE VEGETATION SOILS NUMBER OF 

SHEEP TO BE KEPT ASSOCIATED BRANCHES OF HUS- 
BANDRY. 

Persons desirous of engaging in Sheep Husbandry are 
frequently at a loss to decide what breed of sheep is best 
adapted to their particular wants and circumstances. The 
first and leading point to determine is whether it would be 
most profitable to make mutton the prime consideration and 
wool the accessory — or wool the prime consideration and 
mutton the accessory. If the first conclusion is adopted, some 
of the improved English mutton varieties are undoubtedly to 
be preferred ; if the last, the Merino has no competitor. 

Markets. — Where other circumstances equally admit of 
either husbandry, it is the market that determines which 
product is most profitable to the producer. Wool has a vastly 
greater and more universal consumption than mutton, because 
it is a prime necessary of life to every man outside the tropical 
zone. As such a necessary, it can never find any practical 
substitutes. Mutton is not a necessary of life, although it is 
made to contribute largely towards one — human food. It 
readily admits of substitutes. It is scarcely used by large 
classes of men and even by whole nations. Yet it is 
demonstrable that it can be produced more cheaply than any 
other meat. No meat, not even the choicest of beef, is more 
palatable to those accustomed to its use ; and none is more 
nutritious and healthful. The prize-fighter, whose success 
depends upon the perfect integrity of all his physical tissues 
and functions, is as often trained on mutton as on beef; the 
physician as often recommends it to the invalid. And finally, 
it wastes less than beef in being converted into food.* Every- 

* The Report on Sheep Husbandry made to the Mass. Board of Agriculture in 
I860, by Mr. James S. Grennell, thus condenses the results of various experiments 



MUTTON MARKET OF UNITED STATES. 83 

thing therefore marks it as one of the most valuable articles 
of human consumption ; and where its use is once established, 
there is no one which finds a steadier demand or more 
uniformly remunerating prices. 

In England mutton is the favorite animal food from the 
peer to the peasant — the former preferring the choicer 
qualities as a matter of taste, the latter the cheaper and fatter 
ones as a matter of economy. A pound of Leicester mutton 
which has an external coating of fat as thick as that on well 
fattened pork, will go as far to support life as a pound of pork, 
eaten simply in the condition of cooked meat ; and eaten 
partly as meat and used partly to convert vegetables into 
soups having the flavor and to some extent the nutritive 
qualities of meat, it will not only produce more palatable 
nutriment than the pork, but nutriment capable of being 
distributed so as to supply more wants. 

Thirty or forty years ago but very little mutton was 
consumed in the United States. Our people had not learned 
to eat it. Colonizing a new country covered with forests 
containing animals that prey on sheep, and in which the 
necessary labor for guarding them was scarce and high, our 
forefathers kept only enough to meet pressing wants for wool 
for household uses. Few were used for food, and the early 
sheep of our country did not constitute very palatable food. 
Beef and pork were more easily grown and better relished. 
This state of things continued until mutton became a stranger 
to American tables. "When at length the country became 
better adapted to the production of sheep, there was no call 
for mutton. I can niyself remember when it was rarely seen 
and never habitually used on the table, except perhaps in 
cheap school boarding-houses of the "Dotheboy's Hall" order. 
This prejudice continued until the comparatively recent 
general introduction of the improved English mutton sheep — 
and until fashion in cities, for once, inaugurated a great and 
useful change in the public taste. Some of the earlier preju- 
dices yet linger among our rural population; yet the same 
change is making its way, not slowly, into the country. The 
first quality of mutton now commands a higher price in our 



on this subject: "English chemists and philosophers, by a series of careful experi- 
ments, find that 100 lbs. of beef, in boiling, lose 26K lbs., in roasting, 32 lbs., and in 
baking 30 lbs. by evaporation and loss of soluble matter, juices, water and fat. Mutton 
lost by boiling 21 lbs., and by roasting 24 lbs. ; or in another form of statement, a leg of 
mutton costing raw, 15 cents, would cost boiled and prepared for the table, 18>3 cents 
a pound ; boiled fresh beef would, at the same price, cost 19M cents per pound, sirloin 
of beef raw, at 16>2 cents, costs roasted 24 cents, while a leg of mutton at 15 cents, 
■would cost roasted only 22 cents." 



81 MUTTON MARKET OF UNITED STATES. 

markets than the first quality of beef. The extent ami 
rapidity of the change in our cities receives a striking 
illustration from the fallowing facts stated in Mr. Grennell's 
Report to the Missachusetts Board of Agriculture, 1860: 

" At Brighton (near Boston,) on the market day previous 
to Christmas, 1839, two Franklin county men held 400 sheep, 
every one in the market, and yet so ample was that supply, 
and so inactive the demand, that they could not raise the 
market half a cent a pound, and finally S4>ld with difficulty;" 
and "just twenty years after that, at the same place, on the 
market day previous to Christmas, 1859, five thousand four 
hundred sheep changed from the drover to the butcher." 

The history of Boston in this respect is but the history of 
all our larger cities, towns and villages. When this taste 
fully extends to our rural population — when our laboring 
farmers learn, as they ought to learn and will learn, that 
eating fat pork all the year round is not most conducive to 
health and to an enlarged general economy — when they 
acquire the habit, as they so conveniently could, of killing 
mutton habitually for household and neighborhood consump- 
tion in its fresh state* — our people, now the greatest 
consumers of animal food among the civilized nations of the 
world, will become by far the greatest consumers of mutton 
in the world. I doubt whether the enormous amount which 
will be annually grown and consumed in this country, within 
fifty years, has yet occurred to our most sanguine advocates 
of mutton sheep. 

It is a fixed fact, thoroughly settled by the experience of 
England, and beginning to be well understood in extensive 
regions of our country, that where the market for mutton is 
large and near by, and the local circumstances are favorable 
to its culture, its production, if well understood and conducted, 
is more profitable as a leading object, than the production of 
wool. The Merino Avas introduced into England under the 
most favorable auspices, and its propagation fostered by 
kingly example and encouragement. But neither as a wool 
sheep proper, nor when bred into what may be termed a half 
mutton sheep, has it been able to compete at all successfully 
with the pure mutton breeds. Where the soils and surround- 
ings are suitable, it is already becoming more profitable (in 

* The frequent killing of beeves on farms, to be eaten fresh, is not convenient on 
account of their size. In warm weather, the meat could not usually be disposed of 
Without Baiting down, unless the farmer should change his occupation to that of a 
traveling meat peddler. It is not so with the sheep. Three or four formers could joiu 
together to buy all the meat, or to kill alternately and divide the carcass. 



CLIMATE ADAPTED TO DIFFERENT BREEDS. 85 

ordinary times, when the natural conditions of the market 
are not unsettled by war,) to grow first-class mutton sheep 
throughout most of New England, excepting Vermont and the 
northern halves of New Hampshire and Maine — throughout 
the eastern portions of New York and Pennsylvania — and 
throughout a belt of country round every city and village, 
wider or narrower according to its population — than it is to 
grow the wool sheep proper. And this area of mutton 
production must steadily increase, pushing back wool 
production further from the sea-board and from all dense 
aggregations of population. 

While the preceding facts, in my opinion, admit of no 
reasonable question, it is nevertheless equally true that the 
demand for wool in the United States is, as I shall presently 
show, far less adequately supplied already with the domestic 
product — and that this demand must of absolute necessity go 
on increasing forever in the same ratio with the increase of 
our entire population — so that, in the aggregate, the amount 
of land and other capital, which can be profitably invested in 
its production will always exceed that which can be profitably 
invested in mutton production, in the proportion of almost 
hundreds to one. Our vast interior regions, with the 
exceptions already indicated in the vicinity of cities, and with 
certain others which it is not necessary to specify here — in 
other words, all regions remote from meat markets or from 
which the transportation to such markets is distant or 
expensive — can be more profitably devoted to the production 
of wool as a leading object than mutton. 

It will be seen from all the foregoing that there is, 
properly speaking, no competition whatever between the 
mutton growing and the wool growing sheep — that their 
respective profitableness is purely a question of place and 
some other circumstances which I am about to name — and 
that to raise that question abstractly, and independently of 
these local and other considerations, as is often done, is almost 
as irrelevant and unmeaning as it would be to ask which is 
the most profitable mode of transportation, ships or locomo- 
tives, without having reference to the fact whether such 
transportation must be made by land or water. I will now 
proceed to examine the other qualifying local circumstances, 
besides those of market. 

Climate. — The English improved mutton sheep in its 
present perfect development of all the points which constitute 



86 VEGETATION ADAPTED TO DIFFERENT BREEDS. 

a matchless meat-producing animal, is in some part a product 
of the temperate, uniform and moist climate of England. It 
has withstood the effects of acclimation in the United States 
successfully, but it requires more care and shelter and is not 
BO well adapted to our habitual extremes of heat and cold as 
the hardier Merino.* Exposed without good, adequate 
shelter to rapid aud excessive variations of temperature, it is 
subject to colds Avhich tend to various diseases, both of 
inflammatory and typhoid types : and, at best, it wilts and 
withers away. It is not adapted to very cold or very warm 
climates for another reason — on account of the influence they 
exert on vegetation. But its sustentation will be considered 
under another head. 

The Merino endures vicissitudes and extremes of weather 
better than any other sheep which approximates to it in value. 
Its range of habitation extends throughout the temperate 
zone. It will flourish wherever the ox or the horse will 
flourish; but, like those animals, thrives better for some 
degree of whiter shelter anywhere, and demands it in regions 
of severe cold, and especially in those where humidity and 
cold are liable to follow each other rapidly. 

Vegetation. — The English breeds of sheep require 
abundant and steady supplies of food properly or profitably 
to develop their peculiar value as mutton sheep — viz., their 
fattening properties and early maturity. They are therefore 
unadapted to regions where the summer is hot enough to dry 
up the vegetation, as on the plains of Texas and Southern 
Spain — or regions subject to periodical drouths, like Australia 
and the Cape of Good Hope — or those where vegetation is 
locked up by long and rigorous winters, as in various 
northern inhabited regions of both hemispheres. For the 
scarcity of succulent food produced by summer drouth, there 
can be no adequate reparation to these hearty and gross 
feeding animals. For the long and severe winter, there 
may be sufficient extra provision made in grain and roots : 
and where land is comparatively cheap, and mutton in good 
demand, that extra provision can be profitably made. These 
are the conditions of New York and New England as mutton 
producing countries. England presents far more favorable 
natural, and, in many respects, artificial conditions, for its 

* I do not of course here include among the improved English mutton sheep, the 
black-faced Scotch or Heath Sheep, or the Cheviots, though I enumerated. them among 
the English sheep which are residents of the United States. 



VEGETATION ADAPTED TO DIFFERENT BREEDS. 87 

production, but still the greatly higher cost of land there, 
more than counterbalances those advantages on the score of 
actual and direct profit to the grower. While all the mutton 
sheep are abundant consumers, there is a difference in them in 
this particular, and in the quality of the food they require. 
Speaking generally, the long-wools require the richest and 
most abundant pasturage, and they will consume ranker 
herbage than would be adapted to upland breeds, or to the 
Merino. They are much less inclined to travel or work for 
their food. They are therefore, properly, low-land sheep. 
Their place is rather the rich, moist plain, than the dry hill- 
side. The Leicester is the tenderest and the least disposed to 
work of all. The Cotswold is perhaps the hardiest and best 
worker of the long-wools which I have described, and thrives 
on low, moist hills, like those from which it derives its name.* 
Judging from its blood, the New Oxfordshire should occupy 
an intermediate place between the two preceding families. 
% A11 the Down families are hardy and possess good working 
'qualities. In England they are regarded as an upland sheep, 
adapted to dry and comparatively scanty pasturage when 
necessary. But this is to be understood with qualifications, 
in the United States. The words " upland " and " dry," as 
applied to pasturage, have very different significations from 
their English ones, in our land of lofty hills and mountains, 
and of dry, scorching summers. 

As a hard working sheep — as a sheep adapted to very 
scanty, or dried up, or poor pasturage, — none of the heavy 
English mutton breeds can compare with the Merino. The 
latter, indeed, work for their food of preference. Where 
they have an opportunity to choose, they will invariably 
desert the rich valley a considerable portion of each day to 
climb the lofty hill -side, and they love to clamber about its 
steep declivities and among rocks, to crop the scattered tufts 
of grass, and browse on those bushes and weeds which they 
are fond of mingling with their food. They have not, in these 
particulars, been bred away as far from the natural habits of 
the species as the English sheep. Their annual sojourn 
among the mountains of Spain, until a comparatively recent 
period, preserved these habits. 

From an observation of these facts, it has been inferred 
that the Merino requires short verdure, and a considerable 
variety of it. It is probable, on chemical considerations, that, 
other things being equal, several kinds of food will furnish 



* The Cotswold Hills are in Gloucestershire, England. 



88 SOILS ADAPTED TO DIFFERENT BREEDS. 

more of the constituents of wool than will a single kind — 
and consequently that a variety in it, tends to the development 
of a heavier fleece. But abundance and richness of food, 
when the Merino is compelled to. accept them, affect its 
tissues as they do those of all other sheep, and more than 
compensate for the want of variety. Removed from the 
pastures of NeAV England, or of North-eastern, Eastern and 
Southern New York — grazing lands proper — to the rich 
clover fields of Western "New York, Ohio, etc., the Merino 
increases considerably, both in size and weight of wool — and 
it continues equally healthy. 

Soils. — The fertility of the soil is a consideration of Aveight 
in selecting a breed of sheep to stock it, because on that 
fertility depends the luxuriance, and, to some extent, the quality 
of its vegetation. Its nature and condition in other 
respects are also important. Habitual wetness of the 
ground, from whatever cause it arises, is highly injurious ter 
most kinds of sheep, and particularly to upland ones. Tlie 
Merino cannot endure it; and wool growing can never be 
profitably pursued on such lands. That mutton growing can, 
is abundantly proved by the example of the English farmers 
in Lincolnshire, Kent, etc. In such situations, the long- 
wooled sheep are decidedly preferable. 

It is thought, in England, that an occasional or even 
single visit to some fen or stagnant pool sometimes 
communicates the fatal rot* to flocks of sheep. I never 
have heard of an instance of this in the United States. In 
our Northern and Eastern States I never hare known the 
most free access to swamps, pools, etc., to prove injurious to 
sheep, provided they had abundant pasturage and pure water 
without, and only entered the marshy lands voluntarily, as all 
sheep will occasionally do in quest of a change of food. 
Constant access to salt-marshes is considered actually 
promotive of their health and thrift. I have received various 
accounts of fatal disorders attacking sheep in Texas, in 
consequence of being kept on what are termed hog- wallow 
prairies — low, flat, moist, very rich lands. I should expect 
such results in large flocks restricted to such lands, in all our 
warm climates; and such pasturages would be decidedly 
uncongenial to all the short-wooled varieties of sheep, in any 
climate. 



* I speak of liver rot, not hoof rot. The names are sometimes confounded in our 
Northern States where the former disease is mostly unknown. 



HERDING OF DIFFERENT BREEDS. 89 

A very light, sandy or other soil which rises readily in 
clouds of dust, when not well sodded over, is unfavorable 
to the cleanliness and beauty of wool — yet some healthy 
and profitable sheep ranges have this fault. A gravelly 
loam, or other soil of about equal consistency, readily 
permeable to surface water, thoroughly drained, abounding 
in clear, rapid - flowing brooks, elevated and free from 
malarious influences, dotted with groves or clusters of shade 
trees, and of about medium fertility, combines the conditions 
preferred by the Merino. The same conditions would as well 
meet the wants of the Downs ; and greater fertility would 
not be objectionable to them. Lower and moister soils of the 
richest quality are congenial to the long-wools. 

The Number of Sheep to be Kept. — Mutton sheep 
consume more, demand a greater variety of artificial feed, 
and greatly more care than Merinos, and therefore are better 
adapted to small, high-priced farms, where it is desirable 
to invest as much capital in sheep as can be rendered 
remunerative. But the long-wooled families would be 
wholly unadapted to large farms, where surplus capital is 
wanting, even were there not a difficulty of another kind. 
They do not herd well — that is, thrive well when kept 
together in large numbers. The Down families herd much 
better, but still do not compare with the Merinos in this 
respect. In Australia and Texas, a thousand or more Merinos 
often run in the same flock, summer and winter, throughout 
the year, occupying the same pastures by day and the same 
folds by night. And my friend, George Wilkins Kendall, of 
Texas, used playfully to insist to me that in his Merino flocks 
of that number, he could not find one poor enough to make 
palatable mutton ! His flocks passed through the terrible 
winter of 1860 without artificial feed or shelter — when the 
cold was severer than ever before known in that climate, and 
when it so arrested the growth of grass that his sheep daily 
traveled four or five miles from their folds to obtain food; — 
and he did not lose scarcely one per cent, of their number ! 
A large number of mutton sheep may be kept on the same 
farm Avith a sufficient division of the fields and winter 
shelters ; but they cannot profitably or safely be kept 
together in large flocks. 

Associated Branches of Husbandry. — Economy de- 
mands that for the most profitable production of mutton 



90 SIIEEP WITH OTHER HUSBANDRY. 

there should be associated with it a proportionable amount 
of convertible husbandry. Mutton sheep demand grain, 
roots, etc., in large quantities, and in return they supply all 
the necessary fertilizing materials for those crops. These 
fertilizers are comparatively wasted if not devoted to those 
crops. Each husbandry, then, is necessary to the highest 
profitableness of the other. Without such union, neither the 
present admirable system of British agriculture, nor the 
present maximum of population which derives its sustentation 
from that agriculture, could be kept up. The adaptation of 
the soil and other circumstances to convertible husbandry, 
the tastes or wishes of the flock-master in regard to embarking 
in it in connection with mutton growing, and the local market 
for its products, all become, therefore auxiliary considerations 
of weight in choosing between mutton and wool growing. 

I have aimed to present, with impartiality, the principal 
circumstances which determine the adaptability of different 
kinds of sheep to different situations. There are, however, 
generally more or less minor ones in every man's case, known 
only to himself, which somewhat qualify the influence of the 
major ones; and of these he must be his own sole judge. In 
closing this branch of my subject, I will only further add that 
while, in selecting a breed of sheep, every one should keep his 
eyes firmly fixed on the primary object of production, ho 
never should altogether lose sight of the accessory one. The 
mutton sheep would probably be nowhere profitable without 
its avooI, and the wool sheep would be much less profitable 
without its mutton. 



CHAPTER X. 

PROSPECTS AND PROFITS OF WOOL AND MUTTON 
PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The subjoined table of the Prices of Wool, in one of the 
principal Wool Markets of the United States, extending 
through thirty- eight years — through the most disastrous 
revulsions in the money market and in the prices of all kinds 
of property — under tariffs which have at one period given 
excessive protection to our woolen manufactures, and at 
others abandoned them unaided to the competition of Europe 
— presents the best proof I possess, nay, the most unan- 
swerable proof possible, of the steady remunerativeness of 
wool production. It was prepared for me in 1862, from his 
own books and those of his predecessors in the same firm, by 
George Livermore, Esq., of Boston, one of the most eminent 
wool commission merchants ever in the United States — and 
his name is an ample guaranty of its accuracy. It has now 
been published a year, and has circulated throughout the 
trade without one of its figures being questioned.* I have 
added a column to it indicating the tariff laws in force at 
the different periods, but there is not space here to give 
even a synopsis of those tariffs. f 

The average and not the extreme prices for each quarter 
are given, and it will be observed that these are not given 
strictly by quarters anterior to 1827. 

I have learned, from various reliable sources, that from 
1800 to 1807, wool bore low prices in our country; that in 
1807 and 1808 full-blood Merino wool sold for $1 a pound; 
that in 1809, it rose to about $2 a pound, and so continued 
through the war against England, commenced in 1812 — some 
choice lots fetching $2.50 a pound; that when our infant 

* It was published in my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, in 1802; and in 
the Boston trade publications which would place it in the hands of all the leading 
wool merchants aud manufacturers. 

t A complete synopsis of them is given in my Report on Fine- Wool Husbandry, 
1862. 



92 



TABLE OF WOOL TRICES. 



manufactories Av r cro overthrown at the close of that war, in 
18l5, it again sunk to a low j^rice, and so remained until the 
Tariff of 1824 was enacted. 



TRICES CURRENT OF WOOL IN BOSTON. 



Tariff and 
time of 
takiug 
effect. 



Sept. 1. 



Year. Quarter ending Fino. 

1824. January, 

March, 70 

June 30. f July, 

October 60 

1825. January, 60 

April, . .... 

July, 

October, ... 

1826. January, 

April, 62 

June, 37 

October, . .... 44 

1827. January, 37 

April 44 

July 36 

October, 42 

1828. January, 40 

April, 44 

July, 48 

October, . 47 

1829. January. 55 

April, 43 

July 45 

October, 38 

1830. January, 40 

April, 48 

July, 62 

October, 70 

1831. January, 70 

April 70 

July, 75 

October, 70 

1832. January, 65 

April, 60 

July 50 

October, 60 

1833. January, 

April .. . .. . 

July, 62 

October, . . ... 65 

Dec. 31. f 1834. January, 70 

April, ... ... 65 

July, 60 

October, 60 

1835. January, . . 60 

April, 65 

July 66 

October, . . . 66 

1836. January, 65 

April,.... . ........... .. . 65 

July 70 

October 70 

1837- January, 70 

April, 70 

July, 

October, 50 

la 1838. January, 60 

April, 60 

July, 45 



March 3. 



Medium. 


Coarse. 


46 


33 


40 


30 


45 


33 


45 


40 


30 


27 


38 


33 


33 


28 


36 


30 


31 


26 


32 


25 


30 


25 


3G 


28 


40 


33 


40 


31 


45 


35 


35 


30 


35 


30 


31 


27 


35 


30 


38 


32 


60 


40 


60 


47 


60 


47 


60 


50 


63 


£0 


60 


50 


55 


45 


60 


40 


40 


30 


40 


30 


55 


42 


55 


45 


60 


47 


65 


42 


60 


40 


60 


40 


60 


40 


68 


45 


68 


45 


68 


45 


68 


45 


68 


45 


60 


60 


60 


60 


60 


50 


60 


60 


40 


33 


42 


35 


42 


36 


37 


82 



TABLE OP WOOL PRICES. 



93 



Tariff and 
time of 
taking 
effect. Year. 

October, . 

1839. January,. 

April, 



Quarter ending 



October 
to 



Fine. 
65 
55 
65 
63 



August 30. 



Dec. 1. 



July, 

October, 60 

1840. January, 60 

April, 48 

July, 48 

October, 48 

1841. January, 52 

April, 62 

July, 50 

October 48 

1842. January, 48 

April 48 

July, 43 

October, 37 

1843. January, 35 

April, 34 

July, 35 

October, 36 

1844. January, - 37 

April, 45 

. July, 45 

October, 60 

1845. January, 45 

April, 45 

July, 40 

October, 38 

1846. January, 40 

April, 38 

July, 38 

October, 36 

'1847. January, 47 

April, 47 

July, 47 

October, 47 

1843. January, 45 

April 43 

July, 38 

October, 33 

1849. January, 33 



Medium. 
48 
48 
48 
50 
62 
45 
41 
38 
38 
45 
45 
44 
41 
43 
42 
38 
31 
30 
29 
30 
32 
31 
37 
37 
42 
38 
38 
35 
34 
35 
33 
33 
30 
38 
40 
40 
40 
38 
37 
33 
30 
30 
36 
35 
30 
40 



April,.. 42 

July, 40 

October, 42 

1850. January, 47 

April, 45 38 

July, 45 38 

October, 45 38 

1851. January, 45 37 

April, 50 44 

July, 47 42 

October, 45 40 

1852. January, 42 37 

April, 42 36 

July, 45 38 

October, 50 42 

1353. January, 58 55 

April 62 55 

July, 60 63 

October, 65 60 

1854. January, 53 47 

April, 57 62 

July, 45 87 

October, 41 36 

1355. January, 40 36 

April, 43 35 



Coarse. 
37 
38 
38 
40 
46 
38 
36 
33 
33 
37 
37 
35 
33 
35 
33 
31 
26 
25 
26 
26 
26 
28 
30 
31 
33 
31 
33 
30 
28 
30 
28 
28 
22 
30 
31 
31 
30 
30 
30 
28 
22 
23 
30 
28 
30 
33 
31 
32 
35 
32 
40 
37 
33 
32 
31 
32 
37 
50 
50 
48 
48 
42 
44 
30 
32 
32 
32 



94 



TABLE OF WOOL PRICES. 



Tariff and 
time of 
taking 
effect. 



July 1. 



April 1. 



Year. Quarter ending Fine. 

July, 60 

October, 62 

1856. January, 60 

April, 67 

July, 65 

October 60 

1857. January, 68 

April, 60 

July, 66 

October, 38 

1858. January, 40 

April, 42 

July, 42 

October 55 

1859. January, 60 

April, 60 

July, 65 

October, 60 

1860. January, 60 

April, 52 

July, 55 

October, 50 

1861. January, 45 

April, 45 

July 40 

October, 47 



Medium, 


Coarse. 


40 


33 


41 


36 


38 


35 


43 


37 


43 


38 


65 


45 


60 


43 


66 


43 


48 


40 


30 


26 


33 


28 


35 


30 


37 


30 


42 


36 


52 


45 


46 


37 


40 


35 


49 


42 


50 


40 


45 


40 


60 


40 


45 


40 


40 


37 


*. 37 


32 


35 


32 


47 


52 



From the beginning of 1827, from which the above prices 
present the averages of each quarter, to the close of 1861, a 
period of 35 years, the average price of fine wool was 50 3-10 
cents; of medium, 42 8-10 cents; of coarse, 35 §- cents. Fine 
wool averaged 15 per centum higher than medium, and 
medium 14 per centum higher than coarse. 

The wools classed in the table as fine, included Saxon, 
grade Saxon, and choice lightish -fleece American Merino ; 
the medium included American Merino and grade down, Bay 
to half blood; the coarse included wools one -fourth blood 
Merino and below. Each of these classes, of course, 
embraced wools of various qualities and prices. 

The lessons to be derived from this table are most 
valuable to the wool grower. How very striking, for 
example, is the fact that during thirty- eight years — and with 
all the disturbing causes to the wool market which have been 
alluded to — there has not been a single year in which the 
average prices for the wools marked medium in the table 
would not now pay the actual cost of producing our heavy 
fleeced American Merino wools ; and that there have not 
been more than half a dozen years, when those prices would 
not be decently remunerative ! Of the production of how 
many other of our great staples of industry can as much 
be said? 



IMPORTS AjSTD exports of wool. 



95 



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96 DEMAND AND SUPrLY OF WOOL. 

Will this steady demand and these remunerating prices 
last? Here again the facts and figures of the past afford the 
most trustworthy answer. The table on preceding page was 
prepared for me in 1862, by the acting Register of the 
Treasury. 

It is thus made to appear that during the twenty-two 
years which preceded the present war, our imports of unman- 
ufactured wool exceeded our exports of the home-grown 
article in the value of $44,514,'771, or upwards of two 
millions a year; and that during the same period, our 
imports of manufactured wool exceeded our exports of 
domestic manufactured wool in the value of $429,422,951, or 
upwards of nineteen millions a year ! 

There have been during the above period several 
"manias," as they have been termed, as strong as that of 
1862 -'63, to increase wool production in our country; yet, 
in spite of all contemporary predictions to the contrary, we 
see how utterly they failed in every instance to bring up, 
even temporarily, the supply to the demand. When every 
circumstance is taken into account, there cannot be a 
reasonable doubt entertained, that the United States can 
permanently furnish its own markets with a full supply of 
wool more cheaply than other countries can furnish it. 1 have , 
not space here for the numerous facts and statistics which 
go to prove this assertion ; nor is there need of it, they 
have been so fully set forth and discussed in a multitude 
of popular publications, particularly in those invaluable 
disseminators of information, our Agricultural Journals. 
Indeed, we might even compete with other countries in 
supplying wool to Europe. And yet, with such facts staving 
us in the face, there are so many other demands for capital, 
labor and enterprise in our country, that we continue and 
are likely to continue, no one can say how long, vast 
importers of one of the prime necessaries of life ! 

Sheep are not only the most profitable animals to 
depasture the cheap lands of our country — the mountain 
ranges of the South, and the vast plains of the West and 
South-west — but they are also justly beginning to be 
considered an absolute necessity of good farming on our 
choice grain -growing soils, where wheat, clover seed, etc., 
are staples. 

I may be permitted to quote the two following paragraphs 
from my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, 1862: — "Sheep 
would be more profitable than cows on a multitude of the 



ADVANTAGES OF SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 97 

high, thin -soiled dairy farms of New York; and every 
person who has kept the two animals ought to know that 
sheep will enrich such lands far more rapidly than cows. On 
the imperfectly cleared and briery lands of our grazing 
regions, sheep will more than pay for their summer keep, for 
several years, merely in clearing and cleaning up the land. 
They effectually exterminate the blackberry {J&ubus villosus 
et trimalis) and raspberry (Hubus strigosus et occidentalism) 
the common pests in such situations, and they banish or 
prevent the spread of many other troublesome shrubs and 
weeds. They also, unlike any other of our valuable domestic 
animals, exert a direct and observable influence in banishing 
coarse, wild, poor grasses from their pastures and bringing 
in the sweeter and more nutritious ones." It was a proverb 
of the Spaniards : — " Wherever the foot of the sheep touches, 
the land is turned into gold." 

" And the growth of wool is peculiarly adapted to the 
pecuniary means and the circumstances of a portion of our 
rural population. Their capital is mostly in land. Hired 
labor is costly. Sheep husbandry will render all their cleared 
land profitably productive at a less annual expenditure for 
labor than any other branch of farming. By reason of the 
rapid increase of sheep, and the great facility of promptly 
improving inferior ones, they will stock a farm well, more 
expeditiously, and with far less outlay, than other animals. 
And, lastly, the ordinary processes and manipulations of 
sheep husbandry are simple and readily acquired. On no 
other domestic animal is the hazard of loss by death so small. 
It is as healthy and hardy as other animals, and unlike all the 
others, if decently managed, a good sheep can never die in 
the debt of man. If it dies at birth, it has consumed nothing. 
If it dies the first winter, its wool will pay for its consumption 
up to that period. If it lives to be sheared once, it brings its 
owner into debt to it, and if the ordinary and natural course 
of wool production and breeding goes on, that indebtedness 
will increase uniformly and with accelerating rapidity until 
the day of its death. If the horse or the steer die at three 
or four years old, or the cow before breeding, the loss is 
almost a total one." 

The cost of producing wool depends upon that of keeping 
sheep, and this necessarily varies greatly in different 
situations. On the highest priced lands in New York and 
New England on which sheep are now usually kept for wool 
growing purposes, it, under judicious systems of winter 
5 



98 PEOFITS OF WOOL PRODUCTION. 

management, reaches about $2 a head per annum. In 
extensive regions of the South and South- west it is mainly 
comprised in the expense of herding, salting, and shearing, 
and where the number of sheep kept is large, does not 
exceed 25 cents a head. But it would be more profitable in 
those regions to provide some kind of shelter and give a 
little feed in the height of winter, and this would increase 
the cost of keeping to 50 cents a head. In some of our 
Western and North-western States, where sheep can have the 
run of lands belonging to the Government or to non-resident 
owners, in addition to those owned by the flock- master, the 
cost of keeping, including winter shelter, ranges from, say, 
75 cents to $1 a head. In intermediate situations, between 
the densely populated and high-priced lands of the East and 
the broad, sparsely inhabited prairies of the West and South- 
west, (open without price to the temporary occupant,) and 
between the warm South where vegetation flourishes almost 
throughout the year, and the cold North where winter feeding 
lasts from five to five and a half months, the cost of keeping 
will occupy every intermediate place between these extremes. 
Every experienced and sensible man acquainted with all the 
special circumstancs, is the best judge of that cost in his 
own locality. 

Inrproved Merino flocks of breeding ewes should average 
five pounds of washed wool per head in large flocks. Medium 
wool has sold on an average for 42 8-10 cents per pound for 
the thirty-five years preceding the high prices of the present 
war. This gives $2.14 to the fleece, which should pay for 
the cost of keeping, anywhere, and leave the owner the lambs 
and manure for his profit.* The increase of lambs will 
average about eighty per centum on the whole number of 
the breeding ewes.f The value of the manure would greatly 
vary in different situations. It may interest many to know 
how it is estimated in England. Mr. Spooner says : 

"Four hundred South Down sheep are sufficient to fold 
twenty perches per day, or forty -five acres per year, the 

* Tf he keeps wethers, he has for his profit their growth and about a dollar from 
each fleece. Wethers' fleeces should be worth about a dollar a piece more than ewes' 
fleeces. 

+ I gave this as the average fifteen years ago. With the improvement in sheep 
shelters, etc., it ought now to be higher. But B few usually fail to get with lamb, and 
occasionally there comes a "dying year" for lambs — when they are born feeble, 
goitred, rheumatic, or subject to some other maladies, so that they perish in extraor- 
dinary numbers. This was quite generally the case in New York in the spring of 18fi2. 
Taking a term of years together, I doubt whether, under average management, the 
increase by lambs yet exceeds 80 per cent. 



PROFITS OF WOOL PRODUCTION. 99 

value of which is therefore about £90 per year, or 4s. 6d. per 
sheep. * * Three hundred sheep have in this manner 
(with 'a standing fold on some dry and convenient spot, well 
littered with straw or stubble,') produced eighty large cart- 
loads of dung between October and March, and in this 
manner, after the expenses have been deducted, each sheep 
has earned 3c?. per week." 

A hundred Merino sheep, given abundance of bedding, 
will, between December 1st and May 1st, make at least forty 
two -horse loads of manure — and if fed roots, considerably 
more. I scarcely need to say that both the summer and 
winter manure of the sheep is far more valuable than that 
of the horse or cow.* Its manure on high-priced land which 
requires fertilizers, cannot be estimated at less than 50 cents 
per head per annum, and I should be inclined to put it 
still higher. 

The value of the lambs and manure is the minimum of 
profit. That profit increases just as the market value of land 
and the cost of keepiug decreases. On the rich plains of 
the West and South-west, manure is not yet reckoned among 
the appreciable profits, and the cost of transporting wool to 
market is from one to two cents per pound. The Western 
grower, then, gets the lamb and about half the fleece, as the 
profit on each sheep. The Texan grower gets the lamb and 
about three-quarters of the fleece, and so on. I do not 
deduct the extra prices paid from time to time for rams, 
because each good one vastly more than pays for himself in 
increasing the value of the flock. 

The prices of lambs of different blood and in different 
places, vary too much to admit of even an approximately 
uniform rate of estimating them. But it does not anywhere 
cost more to raise a full - blood than a grade Merino lamb. 



* Horses are not used as depasturing animals in any of the older States. The 
following remarks appeared in my Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 1862 : — " If milch 
cows are not returned to their pastures at night in summer, or the manure made in the 
night is not returned to the pastures, the difference in the two animals in the particular 
named in the text, is still greater. Even grazing cattle kept constantly in the pastures, 
and whose manure is much better than that of dairy cows, are still greatly inferior to 
the sheep in enriching land. The manure of sheep is stronger, better distributed, and 
distributed in a way that admits of little loss. The small round pellets soon work 
down among the roots of the grass, and are in a great measure protected from sun and 
wind. Each pellet has .a coat of mucus which still further protects it. On taking one 
of these out of the grass, it will be found the moisture is gradually dissolving it on the 
lower side, directly among the roots, while the upper coated surface remains entire. 
Finally, if there are hill tops, dry knolls, or elevations of any kind in the pasture, the 
sheep almost invariably lie on them nights, thus depositing an extra portion of manure 
on the least fertile part of the land, and where the wash of it will be less wasted. The 
manure of the milch cow, apart from its intrinsic inferiority, is deposited in masses 
which give up their best contents to the atmosphere before they are dry enough to be 
beaten to pieces and distributed over the soil." 



100 PROFITS OF MI'TTON 1>I!( >1 >T< TI< >\. 

Good grades have averaged about $2 per head in the fall 
for a number of years and the increasing demand for them 
by the butchers is steadily raising the price. Estimating 80 
per cent, of lambs and 50 cents a head for manure, each 
sheep would thus average in both products $2.10 — just about 
the equivalent of the fleece ; so that it would be equally 
well, on high-priced lands requiring fertilizers, to say 
that the lambs and manure pay the cost of keeping, and 
the fleece is to be reckoned as the profit. According to the 
first computation, lands worth 850 per acre would give their 
owner a profit of seven per cent, if they would support a 
little over one and three- fifths sheep to the acre; and that 
would be indifferent grazing land, where the domesticated 
grasses are grown, and under proper systems of winter 
keeping, which would not support three sheep to the acre. 
It would be a very moderate estimate, taking a term of years 
together, to put full blood American Merino lambs — even 
from flocks of no especial reputation and not kept for what 
is technically designated "breeding purposes" — at double 
the price of grade lambs. They are now worth at least three 
times as much. 

The prospect of the future demand for mutton has been 
sufficiently considered. I had hoped to be able to present 
an exhibit, in details, of the cost and profits of its production 
based on actual experiments. But I have been disappointed ; 
and I will only reiterate the statement that the experience of 
England, and of portions of our own country, has clearly 
demonstrated that in regions appropriate for its production, 
it is a more profitable leading object of production than wool. 



CHAPTER XI. 
PEINCIPLES AND PEACTICE OF BEEEDING. 

Breeding, in its technical sense, as applied to the 
reproduction of domesticated animals under the direction 
of man, is the art of selecting such males and females to 
procreate together as are hest adapted, in conjunction, to 
produce an improved and uniform offspring. The first and 
most important fact to be kept in view, in pursuing the object 
of breeding, is that result of a fixed natural law which is 
expressed in the phrase, " like produces like." The painted 
oriole now flashing among the apple blossoms before my 
window wears the same bright dyes that were worn by the 
oriole ages ago. But the breeding maxim just quoted, is 
understood to assert more than that species and varieties 
continue to reproduce themselves : it implies that the special 
individual characteristics of parents are also transmitted to 
progeny. This is the prevailing rule, but it has a broad 
margin of exceptions and variations. Animals are oftentimes 
more or less unlike their parents, yet inherit a very distinct 
resemblance to remoter ancestors — sometimes to those 
several generations back. This is termed " breeding back." 
And, moreover, where the resemblance is to the immediate 
progenitors, the" mode of its transmission is not uniform. 
Sometimes the progeny is strongly like one parent and 
sometimes like the other ; sometimes, and perhaps oftenest, it 
bears a modified resemblance to both. 

The physiological causes or laws which control the 
hereditary transmission of physical forms and properties — 
which determine the precise structure which the embryo shall 
assume in the womb, and give to each animal a distinct 
individuality which will accompany it through life and 
distinguish it from every other animal of the same breed and 
family — have not yet been, and probably never will be, 
fully understood. Nor can we, by the closest study of 
analogies or precedents, learn to anticipate their action Avith 



102 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

absolute certainty. Yet, by a proper course of breeding, 
we can control that action to a considerable degree ; Ave 
can generally keep it in channels which are favorable to our 
wishes ; we can avoid manifold evils which arise from 
promiscuous procreation; and a few, more gifted or more 
zealous in the attainment of their objects than the rest of us, 
can make permanent improvements in the forms and properties 
of our domestic animals, and thus confer important benefits 
on society. 

If the male and female parent possess the same given 
peculiarity of structure, or in breeders' phrase, the same good 
or bad "point," the chances are very strong that the progeny 
will also possess it, because the progeny is most likely to 
inherit the structure of its immediate progenitors ; and 
whether it receives that portion of the structure from one or 
the other of them, or partly from both, it still receives the 
same peculiar form. If all the remoter ancestors also 
possessed the same point, then the progeny must, in the 
ordinary course of nature, be sure to inherit it, for let it 
breed back to whatever ancestor it may, it must inherit the 
same conformation. This law applies to properties as well 
as forms. Hence it is that in breeding between pure blood 
animals of the same breed and family, we find like producing 
like, so far as the family likeness is concerned, in steady and 
endless order, and this necessarily includes a good deal of 
individual likeness. Indeed, it is this long continued 
preservation and transmission to descendants of the same 
properties by one family that constitutes "blood," in its 
technical sense — and its " purity " is its utter isolation from 
the blood of all other families. The full blood, or pure 
blood, or thorough-bred animal — for all these terms imply 
the same thing* — can inherit from its parents, or take 
from its remoter ancestors by breeding back, onry the same 
family characteristics. 

But in breeding between mongrels — animals produced 
by the crossing of different breeds — the closest resemblance 
of the parents in any point not common to both breeds, does 
not insure the transmission of their characteristics in that 
point to their offspring ; for the offspring may obtain different 
ones by breeding back to either of the ancestors with which 
the cross commenced, or to some intermediate and partially 

* At least, as they are used in this volume. An effort has been made in some 
quarters to introduce a distinction between these significations, but, in my judgment, 
without any authority. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. 103 

assimilated ancestors. This occasional breeding back and 
consequent divergence from the existing type, is liable to 
continue for a great number of generations ; and it can only 
be repressed by a long and uniform course of breeding, and 
by a rigorous " weeding out " — that is, exclusion from 
breeding — of every animal exhibiting a tendency toward 
such divergence. 

We cannot always, among either pure bloods or mongrels, 
breed from perfect or approximately perfect individuals, or 
those which are alike in their structure and properties. 
Necessity sometimes, and economy frequently, requires us to 
make use of materials which we would not voluntarily select 
for the purpose. In such cases, it should always be the aim 
of the breeder to counteract the imperfection of one parent by 
the marked excellence of the other parent in the same point. 
If, for example, a portion of the ewes of a flock are toO short- 
wooled, they should, other things being equal, be coupled 
with a particularly long-wooled ram. 

The hereditary predispositions of breeding animals are 
also to be regarded, as well as their actual existing charac- 
teristics. In the case just given, if the long-wooled ram was 
descended from uniformly short-wooled ancestors, his length 
of wool would be what is termed an " accidental " trait or 
property; and there would be little probability of his 
transmitting it with uniformity and force to his offspring out 
of short-wooled ewes. There would be no certainty of his 
doing so, even among long-wooled ewes. 

What are considered accidental characteristics are them- 
selves generally the result of breeding back to a forgotten 
ancestor, but sometimes they are purely spontaneous. In 
such cases, they are exceptions, not to be accounted for by 
any of the known laws of reproduction. As a general thing 
they are npt transmitted to posterity. In other cases they 
are feebly transmitted to the first generation and then 
disappear. But occasionally they are very vigorously repro- 
duced, and if cultivated by inter - breeding, the related 
animals possessing them soon become fixed in their de- 
scendants apparently as firmly as the old and long -established 
peculiarities of breed.* The following is an instance of this, 

* It is claimed that artificial peculiarities even — those produced by external 
causes after birth — are sometimes inherited, as for example, a limb distorted by 
accident. To this extent, I suspect the genuine cases of inheritance, are very rare. 
But habitual artificial properties, and to some extent, structures, marks etc., not unfre- 
quently become hereditary. If, for example, wen or brutes are kept healthy and 
vigorous for several generations, by proper food and exercise, they will have more 
vigorous offspring than the descendants of the same ancestors improperly fed and 



104 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

which, so far as the facts occurred in the United States, fell 
under my own observation. A ram having ears of not more 
than a quarter the usual size appeared in a flock of Saxon 
sheep, in Germany. He Avas a superior animal, and got 
valuable stock. These were inter-bred and a "little-eared" 
sub- family created.* Some of these found their way into 
the United States, between 1824 and 1828. One of the 
rams came into Onondaga County, New York. He was a 
choice animal, and his owner, David Ely, valued his small 
ears as a distinctive mark of his blood. He bred a flock 
by him, and gradually almost bred off their ears entirely. 
His flock enjoyed great celebrity .and popularity in its day, 
but has long been broken up, and many years have doubtless 
elapsed since any of the surrounding sheep owners have used 
a " little - eared " ram. Yet nearly every flock that retains 
a drop of that blood — even coarse mutton sheep bred away 
from it, probably for ten or fifteen generations, insomuch 
that all Saxon characteristics have totally disappeared — still 
continue to throw out an occasional lamb as distinctly 
marked with the precise peculiarity under consideration, as 
Mr. Ely's original stock. 

Another much more important alledged case in point, is 
that of the Mauchamp family of Merinos in France. The 
published accounts of them declare that, in 1828, "a Merino 
ewe produced a peculiar ram lamb having a different shape 
from the usual Merino, and possessing a long, straight, silky 
character of wool," " similar to mohair," and " remarkable 
for its qualities as a combing wool." Mons. J. L. Graux, the 
owner of this lamb, bred from him others which resembled 
him. "In each subsequent year," the account continues, 
"the lambs were of two kinds, one possessing* the curled, 
elastic wool of the old Merinos, only a little longer and finer ; 
the other like the new breed; At last the skillful breeder 
obtained a flock combining the fine, silky fleece, with a 
smaller head, broader flanks and more capacious chest." 
This, excepting in the matter of being " finer " than the 
Merino, (and I am unable to say what Mons. Graux considers 
fine,) is a pretty good description of a mongrel between a 
Merino and some long-wooled variety, — and such I have no 

enervated by idleness. And as vigor depends upon the volume of the muscle and 
upon the conformation of both the muscles and general frame, it follows that the 
shape is measurably controlled by the properties, and that artificial shapes become 
hereditary. 

• This was the explanation given me of the origin of these sheep by my lamented 
friend, the late Henry D. Grove. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. 105 

doubt it is. The "accidental" traits which are developed 
in breeding from puxe animals of the same blood never, I 
suspect, at one bound, embrace quite such comprehensive 
particulars as a change, not only in the essential character- 
istics of the wool, but also in the general form of the carcass.* 

But trustworthy cases of the , vigorous transmission of 
accidental properties, involving visible changes, are sufficiently 
numerous. Involving slight changes or variations, not 
recognized as such by casual observers, they are more 
numerous. It is by noting these last, and cultivating the 
good ones, that the judicious breeder makes some of his best 
improvements. How otherwise can he possibly raise the 
progeny, in any given point, above the plane of its parents, 
and of all its ancestors? But while the breeder should avail 
himself of every opportunity of this kind to attempt to 
perpetuate accidental improvements on the pre-existing type, 
he must be prepared to meet with more disappointments 
than successes. My Merino ram "Premium" — mentioned 
particularly in "Sheep Husbandry in the South," and in 
some other publications, for his extraordinary individual 
qualitiesf — perhaps the finest wooled sheep then on record 
for one of equal weight of fleece, and ranking in the former 
particular Avith the choicest Saxons — did not get progeny 
peculiar for fineness. His own ancestors had been fine for 
the breed, but not remarkable in that particular. One of the 
showiest Merino rams now in New England does not inherit 
his showy traits, and he utterly fails to transmit them to his 
progeny. Exceptional good qualities are not, according to 
my observation, as likely to become hereditary, as indifferent 
or bad ones. 

Accidental characteristics are less likely to be perpetuated 
where they are opposed to the special characteristics of the 
breed. For example, the Merino wool has had a peculiar 
curled or spiral form of the fiber, for ages — a fixed, marked 
trait, never Avanting, and as much a characteristic of the wool as 
its fineness. Mons. Graux's first straight-Avooled "Mauchamp 
Merino" ram, if an accidental instead of a mongrel animal, 
brought only his own individual poAver to transmit that 
peculiarity to his progeny (out of full blood Merino ewes) 

* It will be seen that I have not introduced the case of these sheep with any view 
of illustrating the transmission of actual "accidental" qualities — but to caution my 
readers against what I have not a shadow of doubt is either an amusing case of 
credulity or a gross attempt at imposition. 

t Sheep Husbandry in the South, p. 135. American Quarterly Journal of Agricul- 
ture, 1845 ; ib, 1846, p. 290. Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 1802, pp. 65, 07. 

5* 



10G PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. 

againsl a hereditary power which had been acquiring force for 
ages.* His success therefore was the more marvelous. But 
in merely giving a smaller head, etc., to his progeny, he did 
not necessarily run counter to any special and fixed peculiarity 
of breed.f The heads of Merino s?ieep vary in size. Some of 
them are small. A malformation consisting of small ears, or 
of the want of any ears, or of one or more imperfect legs, or 
of having six legs, or any other deformity, does not impinge 
the special characteristics of a breed, or of one breed more 
than another. In all breeds alike, whether pure or impure, 
there is a tendency in nature to preserve and restore the 
normal form in the progeny ; but occasionally, as in the case 
of Mr. Ely's sheep, that tendency is not strong enough to 
resist the tendency of like to produce like. 

In all instances, pains should be taken to avoid breeding 
between males and females possessing the same defect, and 
particularly the same hereditary defect. In the first case, the 
individual force of hereditary transmission in both parents 
unites to reproduce the defect: in the second, both the 
individual and family hereditary force unite to reproduce it, 
and to escape from their combined effects would, of itself, be 
one of the strongest cases of " accidental " breeding. 

When the same individual or family defects are thus 
transmitted by both parents to their offspring, the latter are 
apt to inherit them to a greater degree or extent than they 
are possessed by either parent. Such an increase or aggrava- 
tion may be regarded as inevitable where the common defect 
is of the nature of an organic disease. If two human parents 
are affected by scrofula, and especially by hereditary scrofula, 
in a slight degree, their progeny may be expected to exhibit 
it in a much more malignant and destructive form. And the 
same law, in transmitting diseases, or morbific conditions, 
pertains equally to brutes. Relationship betAveen parents 
also exerts a strong influence in such cases, but this will be 
more appropriately considered in the next Chapter. 

The relative influence of the sire and dam in transmitting 
their own individual forms and other properties to the 
progeny, has been the theme of much observation and 
discussion. The prevalent opinion formerly was that each 

* But if he was a mongrel, he brought the hereditary influence of straight-woolcd 
and probably pure blood ancestors to bear against that of his Merino ancestors, and by 
breeding in-and-in, and by selection, he was made to give the preponderance to the 
former in the particular under consideration. 

1 1 have no definite or reliable Information In regard to the form of head in the 
Mauchamp Merino. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 107 

parent transmitted a portion of all the properties, or a trait 
here and a trait there, as chance or some special and 
independent power in each animal to "mark" its offspring, 
might dictate. An English gentleman by the name of Orton, 
broached the theory that the animal organization is trans- 
mitted by halves, the sire giving to the progeny the external 
organs and locomotive powers, and the dam the internal 
organs and vital functions. By this division, the general 
form, the bones, the external muscles, the legs, skin and wool 
would be like those of the male parent, while the heart, lungs 
and other viscera, and consequently those functions on which 
the integrity of the constitution mainly rests, would he like 
those of the female parent. But each parent was supposed by 
him to exert a degree of influence on the parts and functions 
chiefly inherited from the other parent ; and this law " of 
limitations" he considered "scarcely less important to be 
understood than the fundamental law itself." 

Mr. Walker, in his work on Intermarriage, presents the 
same theory, substantially, except that he denies that the 
series of organs inherited from one parent are modified or 
influenced by the other parent ; and he assumes that between 
parents of the same breed, " either the male or the female 
parent may give either series of organs."* 

Mr. Spooner, in an article on Cross-Breeding, which appear- 
ed in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 
some years since the publication of his well known work on 
Sheep, adopts the Ortonian theory with some slight modi- 
fications. He says: — "The most j>robable supposition is that 
propagation is done by halves, each parent giving to the 
offspring the shape of one-half of the body. Thus the back, 
loins, hind quarters, general shape, skin and size follow one 
parent; and the fore quarters, head, vital and nervous 
system, the other ; and we may go so far as to add, that the 
former, in the great majority of cases, go with the male parent 
and the latter with the female."t 

The Ortonian theory, or either of the above modifications 
of it, if actually carried into practice, would lead to singular 
results. According to Mr. Orton, the effects of cross-breeding 
would, comparatively speaking, stop with the first cross, for 
each succeeding generation of cross-bred males and females 
would continue to transmit to their descendants substantially 



* Vide pp. 142, 145. 

t Journal of Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1859. 



108 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

the ^uiie halves, in the same order, both with respect to form 
and general properties.* 

According to Mr. Walker the effects of crossing, among 
animals of different breeds, would generally absolutely stop and 
become unchangeable with the first cross, for every generation 
of descendants would receive the same half of the organization 
without any modification ! And ou the other hand, between 
animals of the same breed, the descendants might either 
permanently exhibit the same relative paternal and maternal 
halves, or they might by in-and-in breeding, in the second 
generation, become exactly like their sire in both halves ! f 

The theory of propagation by halves appears to have 
considerable support from facts when it is applied to hybrids — 
animals derived from inter-brecding distinct species, — as for 
instance the male ass with the mare, the horse with the female 
ass, the goat with the sheep, etc. But as applied to sheep, 
every observing breeder ought to know that it is essentially 
unfounded and chimerical. The Merino ram crossed with a 
ewe of some thin and coarse-wooled family, does not, either 
fully or approximately, transmit the weight, fineness or other 

* If this were so, half bloods, when bred together, would reproduce their own 
essential qualities about as uniformly as full bloods when bred together: and the 
attempt to form them into permanent families, occupying the same relative place thej 
do between the original breeds of which they arc composed, should result in as splendid 
success as it does, in point of fact, in complete and uniform failure. And by this theory, 
it would seem the half blood ram ought always to be used to perpetuate half bloods — 
yet experience shows that half blood rams are worthless for that object. I never have 
seen anything more than extracts from Mr. Orton's paper on this subject. I do not 
therefore know what exceptions he made for breeding back. He must of course have 
regarded it as only the exception, or else he could not have assumed any set of facts 
opposed to it to be the rule. Then, in his view, a majority at least of the descendants 
of half bloods, bred to half bloods, or to mongrels of their own degree, would 
continue uniformly to produce their own essential characteristics, — which every 
ring bnedcr knows they do not do. 

t Mr. Walker says : — " Let the example be that in which, of the animals subjected 
to in-and-in breeding, the father breeds with the daughter, and again with the grand- 
daughter. Now, it is certain the father gives half his organization to the daughter, 
(suppose the anterior series of organs.) and so far they are identical ; but, in breeding 
with the daughter, lie may give the other half of his organization to the grand-daughter, 
(namely, the posterior series of organs,) and as the grand-daughter will then have both 
his series of organs — the former from the mother and the latter from himself — it is 
evident that there exists between the male and his grand-daughter a quasi identity. 
[p. 210J 

Mr, Spooner docs not develop his views very fully, but so far as he states them, 
he would appear to adopt Mr. Walker's theory of a strict propagation by halves, and at 
the same time to assume, by implication, that either parent may give either series of 
organs, in all cases, as Mr, Walker only assumes they may among animals of the same 
In i nl. If these are Mr. Spooner's real opinions, he must be prepared to believe that 
results like the following may ensue : — If a Merino ram was put to a Leicester ewe he 
would transmit half of his organization to their common progeny. If the same rain 
wae i > 1 1 1 to his own half-blood daughter of that cross, he might give the other half of 
his organization to the progeny, so that it would be, de facto, a pure Merino. This 
would be a very summary process of creating pure Merinos out of Leicesters I If the 
Bame rule held good in regard to horses, an Arabian stallion might in two generations 
produce pure Arabian stock from cart mares 1 Is Mr. Spooner prepared to adopt such 
a sequitur to his theory? 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 109 

qualities of his fleece to his progeny. He, it is true, transmits 
a fleece which is much heavier and finer than that of the ewe ; 
and if again crossed with the half-blood, he transmits addi- 
tional weight and fineness. Each ascending grade toward the 
Merino will continue more and more to resemble the Merino 
in these particulars. But the process is gradual, not immediate ; 
the properties are transmitted by degrees, not by halves. 

The Ortonian theory, as applied to the transmission of 
form, in sheep, has a little more apparent foundation. The 
ram does, much oftener than the ewe, transmit his general 
external structure to the progeny. But the hypothesis that 
he does so as invariably as Mr. Orton contends, or as Mr. 
Walker contends in the case of crosses between different 
breeds, or even as generally as Mr. Spooner supposes,* will 
fall to the ground at once when examined in the light of actual 
facts. In any and every flock of lambs, whether pure blood 
or crossed, there will be found entirely too many to be classed 
as mere exceptions, which, without breeding back of their 
immediate parents, do take the general form of the dam, and 
not that of the sire. And it will also be found that the 
instances which, even by the most liberal resort to imagina- 
tion, can be adduced as proofs of the theory of a strict 
transmission by halves, and of such a division of those halves 
as the advocates of the theory have agreed on, do not 
comprise a majority of cases. In my judgment, they do not 
include a fourth of them; and could scarcely be shown 
conclusively to include any. As a general thing we see 
distinct resemblances to each parent, or modified resemblances 
to both parents, existing in different proportions in the form, 
the fleece and the skin. One lamb has a carcass mostly like 
that of its sire and a fleece mostly like that of its dam. f 
Another takes a middle place between its parents in one or 
both particulars. Another actually, to some degree, divides 
the form, taking, for example, the shoulders of the dam with 
the hind quarters of the sire, or vice versa. I have a specific 
case in view of a ram (" 21 per cent.,") which has a shoulder 
obviously defective in being too thin. He transmits most of 
his form, his fleece, etc., to his progeny, with marked force. 
But not one in thirty of them exhibits a thin shoulder. By 



* I mean making all due allowance for breeding back, or for an exceptional want 
of relative vigor in the male, &c, &c. 

1 1 think it is not common to see these two characteristics quite so broadly divided ; 
and probably never, when the pure blood ram is coupled with the cross-bred ewe. 
But with both those pure and cross-breeds which most resemble their sires in form, it 
is common to see the fleece at least equally partaking of the characteristics of the dam. 



110 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

the half-and-half theory, all this would be impossible. 
According to that theory, all these characteristics belong to 
the same half of the organization, which is always transmitted 
as an entirety by one parent or the other. 

But it is easier to defend the half-and-half theory, so far 
as it pertains to the viscera and internal organization, because 
it is very difficult to follow it there ! I do not see how a 
really reliable decision can be arrived at except by a practical 
ocular examination of the parts, and it is not easy to 
understand how even the dissecting knife would let in much 
light on the subject. In healthy animals, it is not probable 
that any particular and persistent differences could be 
discovered in the viscera, except in the mere particular of 
size, and in this, the theory would not be likely to derive any 
support from a comparison of facts.* If it be contended that 
internal structure is to be judged or inferred by certain 
effects — such as constitution, strength, appetite, etc., I 
undertake to say, from abundant experience, that the progeny 
as often and as fully inherit these qualities from the sire as 
from the dam, even when they most distinctly inherit the 
general form of the sire. 

I have pursued this subject at greater length, because I 
have observed that too many men who have the word 
"practical" ever on their lips (who seem to consider 
themselves practical on all agricultural subjeots, because they 
work practically with their own hands on a farm!) are always 
ready to adopt the most baseless theories : and I consider the 
Ortonian theory as mischievous as it is baseless. 

I have said that the ram much the oftenest gives the 
leading characteristics of the form ; and I will now add, that 
he much the oftenest gives the size, and several of the 
leading properties of the fleece, particularly its length, 
density, and yolkiness. Its fineness and general style are 
probably usually, other things being equal, as much con- 
trolled by the dam as by the sire. But I do not believe the 
superior power of the ram to transmit his own qualities is 
purely an incident of sex. I believe co-operating causes are 
equally potential, and that the chief of these are superiority 
of blood, and superiority of individual vigor. 

* I suppose that if a large ram were put to a small ewe, and as usual gave his size 
(comparatively/to the progeny, the size of the viscera would necessarily follow the size 
of the sires', because the viscera always correspond with the size of the external struc 
tures and of the cavity to be filled. If, on the other hand, the ewe gave the size of 
carcass, she would also give the size of the viscera. This is exactly at variance with 
the Ortonian theory, if the size of the intestines is one of those properties said to be 
given by that parent which does not give the size and form. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. Ill 

The ram is generally " higher bred " than the ewes, even 
in full blood flocks. As pure blood is only separate family 
blood which has been kept distinct until it transmits but 
one set of family characteristics, so higher blood is produced 
by the selection of pure blood animals of choicer qualities 
and breeding them together separate and distinct from all 
others, until they form a smaller improved sub-family, alike 
possessing a permanent hereditary character. The thin-chined, 
low fore-ended, roach - backed, black -faced sheep which 
formerly depastured the downs of Sussex, were of as pure 
blood as the superb South Downs which Mr. Ellman created 
out of them — but they were not so highly or well bred. 
The improved South Down ram of to-day does not transmit 
the same properties to his progeny which the unimproved 
animal of eighty years ago did. He not only transmits 
better ones, but he transmits them with more force and 
uniformity. This last is occasioned by two circumstances. 
The restriction of the sub - family for a number of generations 
to one fixed standard, gives greater force of hereditary 
transmission to the fewer properties — that is, fewer in 
kind — which that standard admits of, because by that law 
on which "blood" or "species" rests, the oftener the same 
quality is reproduced, the stronger becomes its tendency to 
continued reproduction. The improved South Down breeds, 
so to speak, to one uniform pattern. The unimproved one 
breeds to a dozen different varieties of a family pattern. 
The second circumstance which gives a stronger power of strict 
hereditary transmission to the high-bred animal, consists (after 
the improved family becomes thoroughly established) in the re- 
striction placed on the limits of breeding back. The unimproved 
South Down could breed back to fifty different ancestors, all 
differing quite widely ; the improved one, unless he casually 
goes far back of the ordinary limits of breeding back, can 
only breed back to ancestors of very close resemblance. 

If the pure blood ram is put to grade ewes of different 
and no determinate blood, his strong power of hereditary 
transmission is encountered by no corresponding power on 
the other side, and the resemblance of the progeny to 
himself is unexpectedly striking, considering that they are 
but half of the same breed. If put to full blood ewes of 
his own breed, but lower bred than himself, the resemblance 
to himself is much less marked, though it is still very 
perceptible. If put to ewes of the same breed and as high 
bred as himself, the resemblance to himself is still fainter 



112 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

and considerably less uniform. In these last, he has 
encountered a force of hereditary transmission equal to his 
own, except in so far as he is aided by superior power of sex. 
Persons who buy rams, generally buy from flocks better 
bred than their own, and hence is witnessed that assimilation 
of the progeny to the sire, and consequently that improve- 
ment, Avhich is by some referred exclusively to sex, and by 
others to some inherent property to "mark" his offspring 
supposed to be peculiar to the sire. Tins hypothesis is not 
overthrown by the notorious fact that rams from the same 
ilock exhibit the power of hereditary transmission in 
essentially different degrees, any more than is the hypothesis 
of the superior influence of the male sex overthrown by the 
same fact. Every flock has separate and better strains of 
blood within itself — even where all are descended from the 
same stock. Not only better males occasionally present 
themselves, but also better females. If the latter are found 
to transmit their own properties in a special degree to their 
offspring, they are highly prized and carefully reserved from 
all sales. Each female descendant is prized and reserved in 
the same way, and a sub-family is thus created. A touch of 
in-and-in breeding (by using a ram from the same sub-family 
on his relatives, as well as on the rest of the flock,) frequently 
aids to confer an identity on this little group of sheep which 
preserves itself for generations — as long as the flock is kept 
together. I am not ncquainted with a celebrated breeding 
flock which has not within it several such recognized groups 
or sub -families of different value, but all better than the 
body of the flock. This explains how rams of the same blood 
and flock, and perhaps general appearance, may differ materi- 
ally in their qualities as sires, without imagining the existence 
of an independent faculty based on no physical properties. 
There is still another circumstance which affects the 
power of hereditary transmission, viz., vigor, — general 
physical vigor, and also special sexual vigor. A very strong, 
powerfully developed ram, full of power and vital energy — 
and full of untiring sexual ardor — will get stronger and 
better lambs and impress his own qualities on them more 
strongly than an ill, or feeble, or flaccid ram, with naturally 
weak or exhausted sexual powers. The ram should be 
essentially masculine in every organ and function.* He 



* Large testicles, and large, firm spermatic cords connecting these with the body, 
are regarded as indications of sexual vigor in the rain. The capacity to " bear heavy 
feed" lias also much to do with a ram's endurance in this particular. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. 113 

should not even have what is termed a " ewe's fleece," but a 
longer, thicker and coarser one.* 

The Merino ram produces strong, healthy lambs from the 
age of seven or eight months to that of eight or ten years, 
and sometimes later, if he has never been over-worked. He 
does not attain his full maturity of vigor until he is three, 
and he usually begins to decline at seven or eight. A ram 
lamb ought not, for his own good, to be used to over ten 
or fifteen ewes — merely enough to test his qualities as a sire ; 
and to fit him properly for even this amount of work, he 
should be large, strong, and fleshy. A yearling can, without 
injury, do one-third and a two-year-old two-thirds the work 
of a mature ram. Strong, mature rams will, on the average, 
properly serve about two hundred ewes a year. I speak 
in all the above cases of but a single service to each ewe, 
and of a coupling season extending from forty to forty-five 
days. Rams have often exceeded these numbers. An 
Int'autado ram lamb owned by LomL C. Wright, of Corn- 
wall, Vermont, got one hundred and three lambs in the 
fall of 1862. The "Wooster Ram," so celebrated through- 
out Vermont, served three hundred ewes when a year 
old.f Some strong rams, in their prime, have served 
four hundred. The "Old Robinson Ram" is believed to 
have got nearly three thousand lambs during his life of 
thirteen or fourteen years. The Merino ewe breeds from 
her second to her tenth or twelfth year, and sometimes 
considerably longer, if carefully nursed after she begins to 
decline.J It is better for her, however, not to breed until 
her third year. Some, however, who have valuable ewes, 



* A ram of the same blood and breeding does not require to be as fine as a ewe, 
to get female progeny equal to her in fineness ; and an over-fine ram generally gets too 
light-fleeced progeny. His own fineness, unless an exceptional quality, shows that he 
has been bred too far in the direction of fineness, and, consequently, away from the 
proper standard of weight, for the maximum of these two qualities in the same fleece 
is not even approximately attainable. If the over-fine ram has himself a fleece of 
good weight, it is to be apprehended — in the absence of a full knowledge of antecedents 
— that the latter quality is exceptional, and that he may breed too much in the 
opposite direction. 

+ So I am informed by Mr. Abel J. Wooster, of West Cornwall, Vermont. He 
purchased the ram of Mr. Hammond when a lamb — and hence the name of " Wooster 
Ram," or rather, according to a prevailing Americanism, "Wooster Buck." Some 
Merino breeders who find this name in the pedigrees of their sheep may be interested 
to learn the following particulars communicated to me by Mr. Wooster. The ram 
never exceeded about 100 lbs. weight with his fleece off. His first fleece weighed 12,^ 
lbs., his second 19>2 lbs., and " after that he began to run down," and died before the 
completion of his fourth year. "He would bear heavy feed, and that and hard ser- 
vice shortened his life." 

i I stated in my Report on Fine- Wool Husbanry, 1862, that I had been informed 
that the dam of the " Old Robinson Ram " produced a lamb in her twenty-second 
year. I have since ascertained that I was mihinformed on the subject. 



114 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BREEDING. 

put them to breeding at two, but take off their lambs and 
give them to foster-mothers. If the young ewe is carefully 
dried off her milk, she will experience no injury and no loss 
of growth. The increase of growth during pregnancy 
will make up for the slight falling off after yeaning. 
The English breeds both mature and decline considerably 
earlier in life. 

A theory of considerable importance to the breeder, if 
true, has recently been started, viz., that the male which first 
impregnates a female, continues to exert an influence on 
some of the qualities of her subsequent offspring, or at least 
is liable to do so. I have not, in my OAvn experience, 
observed any proofs of this* 

It has been a prevailing opinion among American breeders 
that it is much better to breed between a small male and 
large female, than in the contrary direction. The reason 
assigned by Mr. Cline, of England, who first, I think, 
publicly advanced this gy r iew, was that the foetus begotten 
by the larger male has not room to expand and develop 
itself properly in the womb of the small female ; that it does 
not obtain sufficient nutrition from stores intended for a 
smaller foetus ; and that, in consequence of these things, it 
can not obtain its normal size and proportions anterior 
to birth : secondly, that it is liable on account of its extra 
size to cause difficulty, if not danger to its dam in yeaning ; 
and finally, that the opposite course, by giving the fcetus 
unusual room and extra nutriment, tends to its most perfect 
development. This is probably true as between different 
breeds, where the disparity in size is extreme, as, for 
instance, between the Saxon Merino ewe and the Cotswold 
ram. I would not expect a greatly overgrown ram to get 
as good stock as a more moderate sized one, even on ewes 
of the same breed, but it would be quite as much for 
another reason as for any of the preceding ones, viz., that 
these overgrown animals never possess the highest attainable 
amount of vigor and general excellence themselves, and are 
not therefore fitted for sires, irrespective of relative size. 
But the rule should not be extended to the exclusion of 
large rams of the breed, if good in other particulars. Nature 
adapts herself unexpectedly to circumstances, in the face of 
all theories. Constant and recent experiments, in England, 

* Those who wish to see the facts and arguments which are set forth to support 
this theory will find them in Mr. S. L. Goodale's interesting work on the Principles of 
Breeding, published in 1861. 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP BREEDING. 115 

in crossing ewes with the rams of much larger breeds (to 
obtain large lambs for the butcher) demonstrate, as has been 
already" seen, that the prevailing fears on this subject have 
been somewhat exaggerated.* 

* The Down or New Leicester ram is coupled with almost any of the smaller 
sized local varieties for the purpose of getting larger and earlier maturing lambs for 
the market. The very small and hornless heads of the Down and New Leicester 
lambs, it is true, peculiarly fit them for easy and safe parturition ; but in other 
respects, they are exposed to all the disadvantages of disproportioned size before and 
after birth, and these are not found sufficient, in practice, to prevent the crosses from 
proving highly profitable for the objects in view. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BKEEDING IN-AND-IN. 

Breeding in-and-in is ordinarily understood, in our 
country, to mean breeding between relatives, without 
reference to the degree of consanguinity ; and I shall 
therefore use it in that sense in this |work, specifying, when 
there is occasion, whether the degree of consanguinity is 
close or remote. But this is not the sense in which it has 
been used by those eminent European writers who have done 
so much to plant an inveterate prejudice against its very 
name in the public mind. Sir John Sebright ranks among 
the highest of these, and he did not consider procreation 
between father and daughter, and mother and son, to be 
breeding in-and-in! Breeding between brother and sister 
he thought might " be called a little close," but " should they 
both be very good, and particularly should the same defects 
not predominate in both, but the perfections of the one 
promise to correct in the produce the imperfections of the 
other, he did not think it objectionable!" And again, he 
says breeding in-and in " may be beneficial, if not carried too 
far, particularly in fixing any variety which may be thought 
valuable." It is to be regretted that Sir John does not 
define what he considers to be in-and-in breeding. I apprehend 
that he means by it breeding the father with the daughter 
and again with the grand-daughter, or the mother with the 
son and again with the grand-son. In all the distinguished 
British works I have ever perused on the subject, I have found 
the same lack of definitions. The authors evidently vary in 
the meaning they attach to the term, but I think I can 
confidently say that none of them make it include breeding 
between all relatives, or object to breeding, when there is 
occasion for it, between relatives not of near consanguinity. 

It is a very prevalent impression in the United States, 
particularly among those who have no personal experience 
on the subject, that the inter-breeding of the most remote 



BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 117 

relatives is fatal — fatal not only to the physical organization, 
but to the mind among human beings, and even to the 
instinct among brutes. 

It was stated in the preceding Chapter that when 
hereditary disease or a predisposition toward it, exists in 
either parent, there is always danger that it will be trans- 
mitted to offspring, and that if the disease or predisposition 
exists in both parents, that danger is greatly increased. .If 
the parents be nearly related to each other, the danger of 
transmission is virtually converted into certainty, with an 
aggravation of the conditions and increased incurableness in 
the malady. Consequently when mankind degenerated from 
their original physical perfection — when disease entered the 
world and predispositions to it became engrafted in the 
human system — the Divine Lawgiver made cohabitation 
within certain degrees of affinity a crime by prohibition. 
But if it was evil in itself {malum in se) why was it not 
prohibited to the immediate descendants of our first parents, 
and why were not unrelated human beings created to avoid 
its necessity ? The peopling of the world in the second 
generation at least, was necessarily carried on between 
brothers and sisters, the closest possible relations. Can it be 
supposed that, under the direct ordination of Omnipotence, 
the human race originated in a crime against nature — in an 
extreme violation of the fundamental laws which regulate 
physical and mental well being? 

The brute, it is fair to assume, was started in its course of 
procreation equally unrestricted, for it would understand no 
prohibition; and it was created with habits which must 
constantly and necessarily lead to cohabitation and breeding 
between the nearest relatives. Some varieties of birds, like 
the dove, are hatched in pairs, one of each sex, and with 
habits which would render the separation of those pairs, for 
procreation, the exception instead of the rule. Some varieties 
of quadrupeds, like the lion, are born and brought up in 
isolated families ; and having no aversion to breeding between 
relatives, it would be most natural that those who thus live 
together should at maturity pair together. In herds of 
elephants, wild horses, buffaloes, etc., particular males 
dominate over the same herd for years, and make it their 
harem until they become enfeebled and are conquered by 
some more youthful and more vigorous rival — probably a 
son — who in turn dominates, decays and gives place to a 
successor. In this course of things, the father must be 



118 BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 

constantly breeding with his own daughters, and, if he lives 
long enough, with his grand - daughters ; and his male 
successors must commence breeding with sisters and continue 
it with their descendants. All these animals are, de facto, 
paired together by that Being who created their instincts and 
gave them their habits. Is there any visible proof that their 
races have become physically degenerate on this account? 
Arc not the lion and the elephant as large, healthy and 
powerful as they were ages ago? 

No one pretends to the contrary. But we are told — 
and this was Sebright's argument — that a natural provision 
was also made to prevent animals from degenerating from the 
effects of in-and-in breeding. " A severe winter, or a scarcity 
of food, by destroying the weak and the unhealthy, has all 
the good effects of the most skillful selection." And he might 
have added, that the strong male kills the weak male, the herd 
trample down the sick and the feeble, and gore to death the 
wounded. Such causes, undoubtedly, combine to extirpate 
what may be termed accidental degeneracy. But these facts 
do not go far enough to sustain the position of those who 
believe that in-and-in breeding necessarily results in degen- 
eracy. If it did, instead of a few, the whole or nearly the 
whole flock or herd or family, in such cases as I have 
mentioned, would perish ; and whole races would long since 
have become extinct. 

The moment we step from the domain of nature to the 
domain of man, the scene changes. We have treated our 
domesticated animals as we have treated ourselves. By 
artificial surroundings — by changing the natural habits m 
regard to nutrition, exercise, etc. — by cruelty or kindness — 
by breeding the diseased with the healthy — we have brought 
malformation, infirmity, disease and premature death among 
all of them; and we have continued the causes until we have 
made the effects a part of the physical systems, and thoroughly 
hereditary among them. Therefore no longer, like the free 
normal denizens of the forest and the air, can they follow 
their natural instincts with impunity ; and the inter-breeding 
of the infirm and diseased, and especially of infirm and 
diseased relatives, must, as in the case of man, be prevented. 
But all the facts I have ever seen or ascertained from 
entirely reliable sources, go to show that the inter-breeding of 
relatives, and even near ones, is innocuous when both parents 
are free from all defects and infirmities which tend to impair 
the normal physical organization. It is difficult to improve 



BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 119 

animals, give them a marked family uniformity,* and give 
their peculiar excellencies a permanent hereditary character, 
without in-and-in breeding. Consequently a great majority 
of the ablest breeders of domestic animals of every description 
in England — such as Bakewell among long-wooled sheep ; 
Ellman among short-wooled sheep ; the Collings, Mason, 
Maynard, Wetherell, Knightly, Bates and the Booths among 
Short-Horn cattle;* Price among the Herefords, f and a 
multitude of others of nearly equal celebrity — have been 
close in-and-in breeders. The Stud Book abounds in examples 
of celebrated horses produced by this course of breeding. 
The same is true of nearly all the improved English varieties 
of smaller animals, such as pigs, rabbits, fowls, pigeons, etc. 
But we need not go abroad for examples. The Paular 
sheep of the Rich family were first crossed in 1842. They 
were then pre-eminently hardy. No one claims that they 
have gained either in hardiness or size by the cross. Yet 
for thirty years preceding that period, they had been bred 
strictly in-and-in, to say nothing of their previous in-and-in 
breeding in Spain. Whether and how far the Spaniards aimed 
to avoid breeding from very close individual relationships I 
am not informed. I have never learned that they paid any 
attention to them one way or the other ; and their general 
course of breeding was certainly in-and-in. Each Cabana, or 
permanent flock, was kept entirely free from admixture with 

* I quote the following from a note in my Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 1862 : 
"In the first volume of American Short-Horn Herd Book (edited by Lewis F. Allen, 
Esq.,) are diagrams showing the continuous and close in-and-in breeding which pro- 
duced the bull Comet, by far the most superb and celebrated animal of his day, and 
which sold, at Charles Colling's sale for the then unprecedented price of $5,000. His 
pedigree cannot be stated so as to make the extent of the in-and-in breeding, of which 
he was the result, fully apparent, except to persons familiar with such things, and such 
persons probably need no information on the subject. But this much all will see the 
force of: the bull Bolingbroke and the cow Phenix, which were more closely related 
to each other than half-brother and sister, were coupled and produced the bull 
Favorite. Favorite was then coupled with his own dam and produced the ccw Young 
Phenix. He was then coupled with his own daughter (Young Phenix) and their pro- 
duce was the world-famed Comet. One of the best breeding cows in Sir C Knightly's 
herd (Bestless) was the result of still more continuous in-and-in breeding. I will state 
a part of the pedigee. The bull Favorite was put to his own daughter, and then to 
his own grand-daughter, and so on to the produce of his prodvce in regular succession 
for six generations. The cow which was the result of the sixth inter-breeding, was 
then put to the bull Wellington, "deeply inter-bred on the side of both sire and dam 
in the blood of Favorite, and the produce was the cow Clarissa, an admirable animal 
and the mother of Restless. Mr. Bates, whose Short-Horns were never excelled (if 
equaled) in England, put sire to daughter and grand-daughter, son to dam and grand- 
dam, and brother to sister, indifierently, his rule being 'always to put the best 
animals together, regardless of any affinity of blood,' as A. B. Allen informs me he 
distinctly declared to him, and indeed as his recorded practice in the Herd Book fully 
proves." 

t Mr. Price, whose Herefords were the best in England in his day, declared, in an 
article published in the British Farmer's Magazine, that he had not gone beyond his 
own herd for a bull or a cow for forty years. 



120 BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 

others, and its stock rams were selected from its own number. 
Consequently fathers and daughters, and brothers and Bisters 
must have constantly bred with each other. Mr. Chamber- 
lain's Silesians have not received any cross, or any fresh blood 
from either of the original families, within half a century ; 
yet they are 50 per cent, larger than the sheep they originated 
from and are entirely healthy. Mr. Hammond's Infantados 
present a still stronger case. They were bred in-and-in 
by Col. Humphreys up to the period of Mr. Atwood's 
purchase ; Mr. Atwood bred his entire flock from one eice, 
and never used any but pure Humphreys rams ; Mr. Ham- 
mond has preserved the same blood entirely intact — and 
thus, after being drawn beyond all doubt from an unmixed 
Spanish Cabana, they have been bred in-and-in, in the 
United States, for upwards of sixty years. Fortunately Mr. 
Hammond has preserved some of his leading individual 
pedigrees, and I will give one of these as a most forcible 
illustration of the subject under examination. For that 
purpose I will select the pedigree of Gold -Drop, one of his 
present stock rams. It includes that of Sweepstakes — the 
ram figured in the frontispiece — and has the advantage of 
exhibiting the course of breeding for two generations later. 
The pedigree is given on next page. 



PEDIGREE OP GOLD -DROP AND SWEEPSTAKES. 



121 







122 BREEDING rN-AND-TN. 

It will be seen that Gold -Drop, after the recurrence of 
seven generations, traces every drop of his blood to two 
rams and three ewes, purchased of Mr. At wood ! A careful 
study of this pedigree will disclose a closeness of in-and-in 
breeding which will surprise most persons, and will surprise a 
portion of them the more in view of the fact that Mr. 
Hammond's whole flock has been bred with the same disre- 
gard of consanguinity, and yet all the time since his purchase 
of its foundation, has been increasing, not only in amount of 
wool, but in size, bone, spread of rib, compactness, easiness 
of keep ; in short, in all those things which indicate improved 
constitution. Nor has there been the least tendency toward 
that barrenness which has been thought by some to be one of 
the results of in-and-in breeding.* 

Every one who draws rams from his own flock and 
breeds from the best, will inevitably find himself a close 
in-and-in breeder. The best beget the best. If a ram of 
surpassing excellence as a sire arises and makes a decided 
improvement in the flock, he is of course coupled with the 
best ewes, and all the choioest young animals in the flock are 
soon of his get — and consequently, leaving out of view all 
previous consangirinity, are as nearly related as half brothers 
and sisters. These must be bred with each other, or the best 
of one sex sold, or the highest grade of perfection, on one 
side, prevented from being joined with the highest grade of 
perfection on the other. The latter alternatives are most 
discouraging hindrances in the progress of breeding improve- 
ment; and how can we assume that they are necessary, in 
the face of such facts as those above given ? I could add 
hundreds of examples, both in Europe and the United 
States, to prove that in-and-in breeding does not, per se, 
produce degeneracy. 

But while I am satisfied that even close in-and-in breeding 
is one of the most powerful levers of improvement in the 
hands of such men as Bakewell, Ellman, and Hammond — 
breeders who thoroughly understand the physiology of their 
art — I shall not claim that it is so, or even that it is safe, 
in the hands of those who do not fully and clearly know 
what is perfect and imperfect in structure ; who cannot detect 
every visible indication of hereditary disease ; and who are 
not familiar by long experience with the effects of combining 
different forms, qualities and conditions by inter-breeding. 

* Seo Appendix A. 



BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 123 

With such notable instances of successful in-and-in breeders 
as I have given, and with the hundreds that might be added 
to the list, it is equally true that the instances of those who 
have failed have been vastly more numerous. When the 
masterly hand of Bakewell no longer guided his improved 
Leicesters, but a very small number among all the prominent 
breeders of them were found able to preserve them without 
some admixture of fresh blood. When not ruined entirely, 
they became delicate and inclined to sterility. And so the 
pinnacle of success is often but one step from the final over- 
throw. In view of all the facts, therefore, the great majority 
of sheep farmers, who do not make breeding a study and an 
art, had better continue to avoid anything like close in-and-in 
breeding — though there is no occasion for those exaggerated 
fears which many entertain on the subject, in respect to 
remote relatives, where the animals to be coupled are 
obviously robust and well formed. 

Some persons believe that the dangers of in-and-in breed- 
ing are less between animals of pure blood than between 
mongrels or grade animals.* I can see no reason for" this, 
if the latter are equally perfect in that structural organization 
on which health depends. 

* See Goodale on the Principles of Breeding. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
OROSS-BBEEDING. 

CROSS-BREEDING THE MERINO AND COARSE BREEDS 

CROSSING DIFFERENT FAMILIES OF MERINOS CROSSING 

BETWEEN ENGLISH BREEDS AND FAMILIES RECAPITULA- 
TION. 

Cross -Breeding, as I shall use the term, signifies 
breeding between animals of different breeds, varieties, or 
families; but it is not applicable to breeding between 
animals of the same family, though they belong to different 
and unrelated flocks. 

Cross -Breeding between the Merino and Coarse 
Breeds. — The range of cross-breeding between fine and 
coarse-wooled sheep is comparatively limited, because there 
is but one breed of the former of any recognized importance, 
viz., the Merino. And no intelligent man, at the present day, 
would any more think of crossing the Merino with another 
breed to improve the characteristics sought in the Merino, 
than he would of alloying gold with copper to improve the 
qualities of the gold. 

When the object of such crossing has been to improve 
coarse inferior races, it has succeeded for cei'tain purposes. 
The coarse common sheep of our country, for example, are 
always rendered more valuable by an infusion of Merino 
blood. They gain materially in fleece, and lose in no other 
particular. But all crosses between the Merino and the 
large, early-maturing improved English breeds and families, 
such as the Leicesters, Cotswolds, and the different families 
of Downs, have uniformly resulted in failure, and must 
always do so, as long as the characteristics of the respective 
breeds remain the same. The largest and heaviest fleeced 
Merinos would probably increase the weight of fleece of even 
the heaviest fleeced English long-wools, but the wool loses by 



CROSS - BREEDING. 1 25 

the cross its present specific adaptation to a demand always 
great in England and now rapidly increasing in the United 
States. * The mutton is not injured, nay, for American tastes, 
it is decidedly improved by the cross ; hut the long-wool sheep 
loses its size, its early maturity, its propensity to fatten, and 
its great prolificacy in breeding. It loses the faultless form 
of the English sheep, without even acquiring the knotty 
compactness of the Merino. In short, in the expressive 
common phrase, it becomes "neither one thing nor the other," 
but only a comparatively valueless mongrel between two — for 
their own separate objects — unimprovable breeds !f 

The cross between the Merino and the Down materially 
increases and improves the fleece of the latter. But it is held 
to detract from the value of the mutton, and it seriously 
impairs the value of the Down in all the same particulars in 
which it impairs the value of long-wools. 

All attempts to establish permanent intermediate varieties 
of value by crosses between the Merino and any family of 
mutton sheep, with a view of combining the especial excel- 
lencies of each, have ended in utter failure. Those with the 
Down and the Ryeland seemed to promise best, J yet they 
not only resulted in disappointment, but produced mongrels 
incapable of being bred back to either of the English types. 

The Merino, owing doubtless to its greater purity of 
blood compared with most other breeds, and to its vastly 
greater antiquity of blood compared with any of them,§ 
possesses a force and tenacity of hereditary transmission 
which renders it a most unmanageable material in any cross 
aiming at middle results. Its distinctive peculiarities are 



* The combination of a wool so pre-eminent for certain necessary objects with 
such valuable mutton properties, render these sheep one of those great gifts to man- 
kind which it would seem almost loickecl to tamper with ! 

tl made some experiments in this cross — quite enough to satisfy me — in the 
earlier part of my life. 

X I bred a few hundred South Down and Merino cross-breeds, many years ago, and 
they made a very pretty sheep. They were not much larger than the largest sized 
Infantados of the present day — because, filled with Mr. Cline's ideas, I selected a very 
small and excessively high-bred ram for the cross, lie was bred by Francis Rotch, 
Esq., and got by a prize ram of Mr. Ellman's out of an Ellman ewe. 

§ The fine-wooled sheep of Spain are clearly traceable to a period anterior to the 
Christian Era, on the authority of Strabo, Pliny and other Roman writers of conceded 
veracity. Pliny was himself the Roman Procurator in Spain in the opening part of the 
first century, and could speak from the result of his own observations. The often 
re-published statement — that the breed was formed and subsequently perfected by 
crossing these fine-wooled sheep with coarse, hairy, long-wooled Barbary rams, intro- 
duced for that purpose by Columella, Pedro IV, of Castile, and Cardinal Ximenes — rests 
on no sound historical proof, and is not credited by any recent intelligent writer on 
sheep. It never was credited by men who were practically acquainted with the breed- 
ing of Merino sheep. If these Barbary crosses are not altogether mythical, they 
undoubtedly were made with, or first formed, the Chunahs, a long, coarse-wo^lwi 
breed of sheep which have existed for ages in Sp«m 



12G CROSS-BREEDING. 

made to give way with difficulty, and its tendency to breed 
back is almost unconquerable. But if the Merino fuses with 
reluctance, it absorbs other breeds with rapidity. A cross 
between it and a coarse breed is always legitimate and 
successful, where the object is to merge that coarse breed 
entirely in the Merino. This is accomplished by putting the 
ewes of such breed, and every new generation of their cross- 
bred descendants, steadily to pure blood Merino rams. 

Many grade flocks were commenced in this way, a few 
years since, in the Southern States, and particularly in 
Texas, — not a few of them under my advice, and to some 
extent under my direction. The pasture lands in those 
regions were limitless and their market value only nominal. 
They were generally yielding no returns to their owners. If 
they could be stocked speedL'y with any kind of sheep, the 
gain would be immense. But wool would be the main object, 
as there was little or no market for mutton. To stock such 
large tracts with pure blood Merinos was out of the question, 
both on the score of expense, and because they could not be 
obtained rapidly enough at any cost. I therefore counseled 
the purchase of the common ewes of the country where there 
were any, and where there were none, those most readily to 
be obtained, — even though, as it often happened in Western 
Texas, none could be obtained better than the small, coarse, 
thin - wooled, miserable Mexican ewes. These and their 
progeny being bred steadily to Merino rams, the result was 
m every instance a decided success. The first generation of 
cross-breeds, even from Mexican sheep, were signally improved 
in weight and quality of wool, and when from a mediocre 
Merino ram, would sell for more than twice the price of their 
dams ; and each ascending grade toward the Merino continued 
to increase steadily in value.* 

* George W. Kendall, Esq., by far the largest and most experienced wool grower 
in Texas, who started a portion of his flock with Mexican ewes, in a letter published 
in the Texas Almanac, 1S58, says : 

" The produce of the old Mexican ewes gave evident sig^is of great improvement, 
not only in form and apparent vigor of constitution, but particularly in the quantity and 
quality of the wool. Ilcre I might state that a Mexican ewe, shearing one pound of 
coarse wool, if bred to a Merino buck of pure and approved good blood, will produce 
a lamb, which, when one year old, will shear at least three pounds of much finer wool ; 
and the produce of this lamb, again, if a ewe, will go up to four and a half or five 
pounds of still finer wool. I can now show wethers in my flock of the third remove 
from the original coarse Mexican stock which last May sheared seven pounds of wool- 
unwashed, it is true, but of exceeding fine quality, and worth 30 cents per pound at this 
time in New York, or $2.10 for the fleece. This is a rapid improvement. Had the old ewe 
and her produce been bred constantly to Mexican bucks, the wether would have sheared 
about 35 cents worth of coarse wool— not more than 40 cents worth at the outside." 
(These facta further show the nonsense of the half-and-half theory of propaga- 
tion 1) 



CROSSING FAMILIES OF MERINOS. 127 

In such crosses the high qualities of choice rams render 
themselves eminently conspicuous — even more so, relatively, 
than in breeding among full-bloods. The descendants of 
such rams in the second cross (-£ blood) are frequently more 
valuable than those of mediocre rams in the fourth or fifth 
cross (|| or §£ blood.) 

In the matter of profit — for the mere purposes of wool 
growing for our American market — these grades approach 
the full-blood rapidly. But there never was a more prepos- 
terous delusion than that entertained by the early French 
breeders, that " a Merino in the fourth generation [|| blood] 
from even the worst wooled ewes, was in every respect equal 
to the stock of the sire." Chancellor Livingston, who asserts 
this to have been the opinion of the French breeders, further 
says: — "No difference is now [1809] made in Europe in 
the choice of a ram, whether he is a full-blood or fifteen- 
sixteenths."* This undoubtedly solves problems in relation 
to a portion of the French Merinos, which otherwise would 
be quite inexplicable. They are, undoubtedly, grade sheep. 
The Germans, on the other hand, refuse to the highest bred 
grade sheep any other designation than "improved half- 
bloods." They found, says Mr. Fleichmann, that their 
original coarse sheep had 5,500 fibers of wool on a square 
inch of skin ; that grades of the third or fourth Merino cross 
have about 8,000 ; the twentieth cross 27,000 ; the perfect 
pure blood from 40,000 to 48,000.f I do not apprehend that 
there is any thing like an equal difference between the number 
of fibers on a given surface of the American Merino and its 
grades ; but in thirty years observation of such grades of every 
rank — some of them higher than the tenth cross, where there 
is but one part of the blood of the coarse sheep to 1,023 parts 
of Merino blood J — I never have yet seen one Avhich, in every 
particular, equaled a full blood of the highest class. 

Crossing different Families of Merinos. — This has 
resulted more or less favorably under different circumstances. 
The Spaniards did not practice it. The French were the first 
who undertook it on a comprehensive scale. They selected, 
as we have seen, from all the Spanish families indiscriminately 

* Livingston's Essay on Sheep, p. 131. 

t See Mr. Fleichmann's article on German sheep in the Patent Office Report, 1847. 

X Probably most persons are familiar with reckoning the degrees of blood in 
ascending crosses — but for those who are not, I will say that the first cross has 1-2 
improved blood ; 3d, 3-4; 3d, 7-8; 4th, 15-16; 5th, 31-32; 6th, 63-64; 7th, 127-128; 8th, 
255-256J: 9th, 511-512 ; 10th, 1023-1024, and so on. 



128 CROSSING FAMILIES OP MERINOS. 

where they could find animals which presented desirable 
qualities, and mixed these families indiscriminately together. 
To this cause, in a very considerable measure, is to be 
attributed the remarkably unhomogeneous character of the 
French flocks. Breeding back, in the hands of persons 
entertaining different views, has separated them into almost 
as many families as they started from ; and the new families 
lack within themselves the uniformity and permanent hered- 
itary character of the original ones. Mr. Jarvis, in the 
United States, crossed several families — all prime Leonese, 
and not widely variant in character. The cross was guided 
by a single intelligent will, and always toward a definite 
and consistent end. Therefore a much greater degree of 
tmiformity was obtained. 

The present highly popular Paular family in Vermont is, 
as has been already seen, dashed with Infantado and mixed 
Leonese (Jarvis) strains of blood.* Crosses between the 
present Paulars and Iufantados are now common throughout 
Vermont, and the produce is held in high estimation. The 
Paular ewe in such cases is usually bred to the Infantado 
ram. It should be borne in mind that the widest of these 
crosses do not go beyond six original cabanas of prime 
Leonese sheep, — among the best and most uniform of Spain. 

The cross began in Germany by Ferdinand Fischer, 

* I gave an account of the origin of this cross in my Report on Fine-Wool 
Husbandry, 18(52, from the information of those who ought to have known the facts; 
but on fuller investigation it proves to have been erroneous in some particulars. The 
Rich (Paular) and Jarvis (mixed Leonese) sheep had been crossed somewhat anterior 
to 1844. Judge M. W. C. Wright, of Shoreham, Vermont, having conceived the idea of 
crossing the produce with the Infantado or Atwood family, purchased a ram for that 

Surpose of Mr. Atwood at the New York State Fair in the fall of the last named year, 
udge Wright sold the ram, immediately after his return to Vermont, to Prosper 
Elithorp, of Bridport, and Loyal C. Remelee, of Shoreham, but used him himself 
more or less for three years. This, the "Atwood ram," got the "Elithorp ram" out 
of a ewe bred by Mr. Remelee, and sold by him to Mr. Elithorp. The dam of the 
Elithorp ram was got by Judge Wright's "Black Hawk" out of a pure Jarvis ewe, 
purchased by Mr. Remelee of Mr, Jarvis. Black Hawk was got by " Fortune," out of 
a pure Jarvis ewe purchased by Judge Wright of Mr. Jarvis. Fortune was bred by 
Tyler Stickney, and got by " Consul " out of a pure Paular (Rich) ewe. Consul was 
a pure Jarvis ram, pnrchased by Mr. Stickney of Mr. Jarvis. Mr. Elithorp sold the 
Elithorp ram, then a lamb, in the fall of 1845^ to Erastus Robinson, of Shoreham. 
The Elithorp ram got the " Old Robinson ram " out of a ewe bred by Mr. Elithorp, 
and sold by him, with twenty-nine others, to Mr. Robinson in 1848. The dam of the 
Old Robinson ram was got by the Atwood ram, above mentioned, out of a pure 
Paular (Rich) ewe bred by Mr. Robinson, and sold by him to Mr. Elithorp in 1S43. 
The Atwood, Elithorp and Old Robinson rams, and particularly the last named, were 
the founders of the crossed family. The Old Robinson ram in the hands of Mr. 
Robinson and his brother-in-law, Mr. Stickney, (who subsequently purchased him of 
the former,) begot an immense number of lambs, which were very strongly marked 
with his own characteristics, and which, in turn, generally transmitted them with 
great force to their posterity. They were generally smallish, short, exceedingly 
round and compact, with fine, yolky, and for those times and for the size of the sheep, 
heavy fleeces. Messrs. Robinson and Stickney spread rams of this family far and 
wide. See Appendix B. 



CROSSING AMERICAN AND FRENCH MERINOS. 129 

between the Negretti and Infantado families, and continued 
in the United States by Mr. Chamberlain, and its results have 
already been described. 

The cross between the French and American Merino has 
been well spoken of in some quarters, but it has not yet, so 
far as my individual observation has extended, justified those 
expectations which, it would seem, might reasonably be based 
on the character of the materials. The best French ewe, or the 
French and American Merino ewe (with a sufficient infusion 
of French blood to have large size,) has few superiors as a pure 
wool-producing animal. But the wool lacks yolk to give it 
weight. The full-blood French sheep also lacks in hardi- 
ness*. Both it and its cross-breeds are excellent nurses. The 
American Merino ram has a super-abundance of the desired 
yolkiness of fleece and of hardiness. As the smaller animal, 
his progeny have especial advantages for an excellent develop- 
ment before parturition, and they receive abundant nutrition 
afterwards. Here then, seemingly, are all the requisite 
conditions for an excellent cross ; and I cannot but believe 
that such a cross will be made with decided success, as soon 
as precisely the fitting individual materials are brought 
together and managed with the requisite skill.f 

The cross between the American and Saxon Merino results 
proverbially Avell — better in almost every instance than 
it would be considered reasonable to anticipate. I gave a 



* It lacks very materially in hardiness if from a pampered flock, or immediately 
descended from pampered ancestors. The early crosses between French and American 
Merino sheep require extra attention when young, but when fully grown are, on fair 
keep, a healthy and hardy animal. 

t I tried this cross a few years since, and the following statement of the results 
appeared in my Report on Fine Wool Husbandry, 1862:— "My own experiments in 
this cross, candor requires me to say, have been less successful. Some of them were 
made with a ram bred by Col. F. M. Rotch and pure-blood American Merino ewes; 
some were purchased of gentlemen who started with such ewes and hred them to first- 
rate French rams obtained of Messrs. Taintor and Patterson; and some were got by 
pure American rams on high grade French and American ewes (averaging say fifteen- 
sixteenths or more French, and the remainder American Merino blood.) From this 
last cross I expected much. The ewes were compact and noble looking animals. The 
produce was obviously better than the get of French rams on the same ewes, but after 
watching it for two years, I have recently come rather reluctantly to the conclusion 
that, in this climate, even these grades are not intrinsically as valuable as pure 
American Merinos. But the Merino ram which got them, though apparently present- 
ing the most admirable combination of points for such a cross, has not proved himself 
a superior sire with other ewes ; and I do not therefore regard this experiment as 
conclusive. (This ram weighed about 140 lbs., was compact and symmetrical, and his 
fleece weighed 14 lbs. washed. He was a very dark, yolky sheep. He was bred in 
Vermont; and though undoubtedly full blood, probabljidid not spring from ancestors 
as good as himself, or in other words, he was an " accidental " animal.) Some well- 
managed experiments of both these kinds have been tried by the Messrs. Baker, of 
Lafayette, and the Messrs. Clapp, of Porapey, N. Y. They bred toward the French 
until they obtained about fifteen-sixteenths of that blood, and now find the cross best 
the other way. One of the last of these crosses now appears to promise extremely 
well." 



130 CBOflSING AMKKKA.V AND SAXOX MERINOS. 

striking instance, in my Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 
1862, of the good results of a Paular and Saxon cross. 1 will 
now give one of an Infantado and Saxon cross. Capt. Davis 
Cossit (U. S. V.) of Onondaga, New York, had ih 1859 a 
flock of Saxon ewes with sufficient American Merino blood to 
yield, on ordinary keep, about four pounds of washed wool 
per head. In that and the two succeeding years he put 
his ewes to the Infantado ram "21 per cent.," (named in 
connection with Petri's table of the dimensions, etc., of Spanish 
sheep in Chapter 1st of this volume.) In 1862 the fleeces of 
the young sheep produced by this cross were first weighed 
separately. Eighty-three two-year old ewes yielded 552 lbs., 
and eighty yearling ewes 504 lbs. of washed wool — within a 
fraction of 6i lbs. per head, and an advance of about 2^ lbs. 
per head over the fleeces of their dams. Each lot was the 
entire one (of ewes) of its year : not one having been excluded 
on account of inferiority. I saw them several times before 
shearing, and them and their wool immediately after shearing. 
The wool was in good condition ; and the sheep obviously had 
not been pampered. They were very uniform in size and 
shape, and bore a strong resemblance to their sire. Not one 
of the whole number had short or thin wool. 

In 1863, sixty-five two-year olds (the portion remaining on 
hand of the eighty yearlings of the preceding year) and 
ninety-two yearlings (the third crop of lambs got by "21 per 
cent.") yielded 1,119^ lbs. of washed wool, or an average of 
1 lbs. 2 oz. per head. All these sheep had been heavily tagged 
and the tags, which would not have averaged less than 2 oz. 
of washed wool per head, were not weighed with the 
fleeces.* 

Notwithstanding these brilliant and rather frequent 
successes in crossing different Merino families, (especially 
where the object is to merge an inferior in a superior family,) 
the failures, or comparative failures, have been far more 
numerous. To cross different families of any breed merely 
for the sake of crossing, under the impression that it is in 
itself beneficial to health, or in any other particular — or with 



* I do not give the weight of the three-year olds' fleeces in 1863, because they 
were put in with the fleeces of other breeding ewes, and not weighed separately. 
About fifteen of the yearling eAves were out of some young ewes of a previous cross, 
then just come into breeding, which yielded about 5 lbs. of wool per head. The l\\ o- 
year olds were sheared on the 34th of May in 1862, and on the 8th and 9th. of June in 
1868, so that their fleeces were of 12^ months' growth. The yearlings were dropped 
between the lith of April and 1st of June. 1862, and sheared at the same time with the 
preceding in 1863, so that their fleeces did not average over fourteen months' growth- 
thc usual one at the first shearing. Neither lot was pampered. 



CROSSING WITHOUT AN OBJECT. 131 

a vague hope that some improvement of a character which 
cannot be anticipated may result from it, is the height of folly 
and weakness. Even uniform mediocrity is far preferable to 
mediocrity without uniformity ; and he who has the former 
should not break it up by crossing, without having a definite 
purpose, a definite plan for attaining that purpose, and enough 
knowledge and experience on the subject to afford a decent 
prospect of success. It is always safer and better in seeking 
any improvement, to adhere strictly to the same breed and 
family, if that family contains within itself all the requisite 
elements of the desired improvement, or as good ones as can 
be found elsewhere. The most splendid successes, among all 
classes of domestic animals have been won in this way.* 
Successful crossing generally requires as much skill as success- 
ful in-and-in breeding. And as it is vastly more common, so 
vastly more flocks in this country have been impaired in 
value by it, or at least hindered from making any important 
and permanent improvement. They are not permitted to 
become established in any improvement, before it is upset by 
a new cross ; and these rapid crosses finally so destroy the 
family character of the flock — infuse into it so many fiimily 
and individual strains of blood to be bred back to — that it 
sometimes becomes a mere medley which has lost the benefit 
that blood confers — viz., family likeness and the power to 
transmit family likeness to posterity. 

Every breeder or flockmaster should, after due observation 
and reflection, fix upon a standard for his flock — a standard 

* The English race-horse and the Short-Horned family of cattle are both frequently 
cited as instances of choice breeds originating from a mixed origin. In regard to the 
origin of the race-horse, the weight of proof and intelligent opinion is the other way. 
In regard to that of the Short-Horn, the matter is involved in much doubt. (Those 
who wish to see the facts on both sides of the question- stated, will find them in 
Stevens' edition of Yonatt and Martin on Cattle 1851.) But conceding, for the sake 
of the argument, that both breeds were originally the result of crosses, can any one 
show that they owed such merit as they first possessed to the cross ? And have either 
of them been improved up to their present matchless character, by the aid of any new 
crosses? Mr. Youatt says : — "In the descent of almost every modern racer, not the 
slightest flaw can be discovered ; or when, with the splendid exception of Sampson 
and Bay Malton, one drop of common blood has mingled with the pure stream, it has 
been immediately detected in the inferiority of form, and deficiency of bottom, and it 
has required two or three generations to wipe away the stain and get rid of its conse- 
quences." The Short-Horns have been bred pure, with an equally jealous exclusive- 
ness ; and no breeder of them would admit a cross in his pedigrees sooner than he 
would a bar-sinister on his family escutcheon, except in the single case of the 
descendents of a polled Galloway cow, to which Charles Colling resorted for a cross 
with some of his Short-Horns. He took but a single cross and bred back ever after to 
the Short-Horns, so that there is not probably a thousandth, or perhaps five thousandth 
part of the blood of that Galloway cow in any of the Alloy (as the descendants of 
the cross are called,) now living. Yet the English breeders think one of the Alloy 
can now be distinguished from a pure Short-Horn, by its appearance ! This cross 
once enjoyed — perhaps was written into — great popularity; but its reputation has 
waned; and there are many leading breeders in England who would not on any 
consideration have a valuable cow bulled by the best sire of the family. 



132 CROSSING ENGLISH BREEDS. 

of form, of size, of length of wool, of quality of wool, etc., etc.; 
and on this he should keep his eyes as steadily as the mariner 
keeps his eyes on the light house, in the darkness, when on a 
dangerous coast. Even in using afresh rani from an unrelated 
flock of the same family, (which is not crossing,) he should 
use one which conforms as nearly as possible to his standard. 
If he disregards this ; if he uses rams now tall and long 
bodied, and now low and short ; now short and yolky wooled, 
and now long and dry wooled ; now fine, and now coarse — 
in a word, each varying from its predecessor in some essential 
quality — he will not, perhaps, break up his flock quite as 
much as he would by crossing equally at random, but he will 
do the next thing to it; he will give it an unsettled and 
unhomogenous character and materially retard, if not alto- 
gether prevent essential improvement. 

Crossing between English Breeds and Families. — 
If we assume, with Mr. Youatt, that the long and short-wooled 
sheep of England are each respectively descended from 
common ancestors, they form but two breeds of sheep, 
according to the mode of classification adopted in this volume. 
There have been but a very few successful crosses between 
these two breeds. The Hampshire and Shropshire Downs, 
however, both ranked as first class sheep, and both officially 
classed as short-wools, have usually a dip of long-wool blood. 
The Oxfordshire Downs are the result of a direct cross 
between the Down and the Cotswold, and they are already 
claimed to be an "established variety."* But the instances 
of failure in blending the breeds have been so much more 
numerous than the successes, that the balance of intelligent 
opinion seems to be decidedly against such attempts. With 
them, as with the Merino, the successes in crossing between 
the different families of the same breed, have beennumerous and 
signal. Mr. Bakewell, there is little doubt, was the first great 
improver in this direction, though we are scarcely authorized 
to cite his example, because, with a spirit much better befitting 

* In this and all similar instances, we should not forget that a breed regarded as 
"established" in England, might not prove so, literally, elsewhere. The English 
breeders, as a class, are men of education, and of ample wealth and leisure to choose 
materials for their experiments, devote time to those experiments, and sacrifice by 
weeding out, without regard to time or money. And by devoting themselves to the 
pursuit, and constantly comparing their opinions with other opinions, and their stock 
with other stock, among a whole nation of breeders striving to excel each other, they 
acquire a degree of knowledge, taste and skill on the subject which is professional, 
:niil which far exceeds that (within their own particular circle of breeding,) of any 
other people. And in no place has Engligh breeding skill manifested itself more than 
in creating, moulding and " establishing " mutton breeds of sheep. 



CROSSING ENGLISH FAMILIES. 133 

a nostrum vender than a reputable breeder, he veiled all 
his proceedings in the closest mystery, and even permitted 
the knowledge of them to die with him. Some therefore have 
affected to believe that he resorted to different breeds, as he 
is known to have done to different families, in selecting his 
materials. But there are no proofs of the fact, and all the 
probabilities favor the conclusion that he adhered strictly to 
the long-wooled families.* Among the facts which woiild 
seem, by analogy, to favor the latter conclusion, was his own 
rigid in-and-in line of breeding, after his materials were 
selected. If he deemed such quasi-identity both in blood and 
structure necessary or favorable to the completion of his 
object, it can scarcely be supposed that he would have volun- 
tarily, and wholly unnecessarily, disregarded so great a 
discrepancy as that of a total difference in breed, in its outset ; 
or, even that he would have spread his selection over any 
unnecessary number of families within the same breed. 

Mr. Bakewell's improved Leicesters have, since his death, 
again been improved by a dip of Cotswold blood. It is found 
to invigorate their constitutions, and to render them better in 
the hind quarters. The Cotswolds of the present day have 
generally been rendered a little more disposed to take on fat 
rapidly, and to mature earlier, by a* Leicester cross. The New 
Oxfordshire sheep, as has been seen, is but a Cotswold 
improved by Leicester blood. 

The Hampshire and Shropshire Downs may be cited as 
conspicuous examples of successful crossing between the 
short-wooled families — for it is, in my opinion, mainly to 
these families they owe their peculiar excellence, and not to 
any strain of long-wool blood, where it exists in them. 
Various of the minor British short-wooled families have also 
been improved by crosses with the Down, and with each other. 

For another and merely temporary purpose, viz., to obtain 
larger and earlier lambs or sheep for the butcher, it is 
legitimate to cross between different breeds or families indis- 
criminately, where the object in view can be effected in the 
first cross. The nature of the soil, food or climate may be 
unfavorable to the large, early-maturing mutton families, but 
sufficiently favorable to some smaller and hardier sheep ; 
indeed, many such localities in all old countries have families, 
grown on them for many generations, which have gradually 



* This is decidedly Mr. Youatt's opinion, though, like other British writers, he 
uses the word breed to classify the different families (as they are termed in this 
volume) of the long-wooled breed. 



184 CROSSING ENGLISH AND LOCAL BREEDS. 

become so adapted to their surroundings, that conditions 
highly unfavorable to other sheep have become innocuous, if 
not actually favorable to them. Yet these local families may 
be ill adapted to meet the requisitions of the most accessible 
mutton markets, or, indeed, of any mutton market. They 
may be too small, too late in maturing, too indisposed to take 
on flesh, fat, etc. In such cases, rams of an improved mutton 
family — the family being selected with especial reference to 
the demands of the particular market and the defects to be 
counteracted in the local family — are put to the ewes of the 
local family, and the produce, as is usual with half-bloods, 
partakes strongly of the physical properties of the sire and 3 e« 
retains enough of the hardiness and. local adaptation of the 
dam to thrive and mature where the full-blood or high bred 
grade of the superior family could not do so. But in all such 
instances, the grower should stop with the first cross. If, 
seduced by the beauty of that cross, he makes a second one 
between the full-blood ram and the half-blood females, he ob- 
tains animals very little better than their dams for the purposes 
of mutton sheep, and decidedly less adapted to the local cir- 
cumstances. Accordingly, some portions of the local family 
should always also be bred pure by themselves, to furnish 
females for the cross. This last course is generally pursued 
among the breeders of England who make such crosses. 

It is wonderful that, with the highly successful example of 
the English constantly before us, in the mode of cross-breeding 
last described, it has not been more extensively resorted to 
in the United States. In the heart of the mutton -growing 
region on our Atlantic sea-board, there are very many locali- 
ties which, by the poverty of the soil, by the severity of the 
climate and the want of proper winter conveniencies, or by 
these causes combined, are rendered unfit to sustain the large 
English mutton breeds. But they sustain local varieties, or 
in default of these, would sustain the coarse, hardy " common 
sheep " of the country; and these bred to Down or Leicester 
rams would produce lambs which, with a little better keep, 
would sell, at four or five months old, for as much as the cost 
of their dams, so that, if the fleece and manure would pay for 
keeping, and if the number of lambs equaled that of the ewes 
(always practicable with such sheep when not kept in large 
numbers,) the net profit of 100 per centum would be annually 
made on the flock.* 



* Mr. Thorne, whose superb South Downs have been described, finds his lands 
well adapted to the pure South Down, but hia sheep of that family are too valuablo 



CROSSING ENGLISH AND COMMON SHEEP. 135 

An analagous course of crossing might be resorted to 
with great profit by those farmers in our Western States, who 
prefer to make mutton production the leading object of their 
sheep husbandry, and who now grow those immense flocks of 
" common sheep," which are annually driven eastward to find 
a market. A single proper cross of English blood on these 
sheep would produce a stock which it would cost little more 
to raise than it now costs to raise common sheep in the most 
jyrojitable war/, and which would habitually command 50 per 
cent, more in market and be ready for market a year earlier 
than the common sheep. They would require good feed and 
consequently not overstocked ranges in summer, and comfort- 
able sheds and an abundance of corn in winter. In regions 
where the latter can be grown more cheaply than its equiva- 
lent in meadow hay in the Atlantic States, nay, more cheaply 
than an equivalent of prairie hay can be cut and stored on 
the same farm, it is a sufficiently cheap feed ; and no one will 
fatten sheep more rapidly or produce more wool.* The value 
of the wool would not be lessened by any of the proper 
English crosses, and would be considerably increased by some 
of them. 

The selection of the English family for the purposes of 
the above cross should be made with strict reference to local 
circumstances. On rich, sufficiently moist lands, unsubject to 
summer drouth, bearing an abundance of the domesticated 
grasses, and near good local mutton markets, the unrivalled 
earliness of maturity in the Leicester would give it great 
advantages ; but it would bear no even partial deprivation of 
feed, no hardships of any kind, and no long drives to distant 
markets. The Cotswold is a hardier, better working and 



for breeding purposes, to be sold as mutton ; and, living in the mutton-growing region 
and havinginore land than is necessary for his breeding flock, he pursues the follow- 
ing course. He purchases the common sheep of -the Western States — say, one part 
Merino to three parts of coarse-wooled varieties — as soon as they begin to be driven 
eastward, about mid-summer or a little later. He has generally, in past years, bought 
good ones from $2.50 to $3.00 a head. It is necessary that they have some Merino 
blood or they will not take the ram early enough. He puts them to a South Down ram 
as near as practicable to the first of September. The ewes are kept on hay in winter 
until just before lambing, when they get turnips, and after lambing, meal or bran slop 
in addition. The lambs are also fed separately. Theytare sold when they reach 40 lbs. 
weight, and all are generally disposed of by first of June. They have always brought 
$5 a head on the average. The ewes having only to provide for themselves during 
summer get into good condition, and a little grain fed to them after frost has touched 
the grass ripens them for the butcher. They, too, have sold for $5 a head, on the 
average. If the fleece, manure, and one dollar a head in addition, will pay for the 
kcepiug, this leaves 200 per cent, net profit. One hundred and fifty per cent, ought to 
leave a margin wide enough for all casualties. See Mr. Thome's letter to me in my 
Report on Pine -Wool Husbandry, 1802, p. 104. 

* I mean corn cut up and cured with all the ears on, and fed out in that state. The 
system of Western keeping and corn feeding will be fully examined in Chapter XXI 
of this volume. ' 



138 ENGLISH BREEDS ADAPTED TO SUCH CROSSES. 

driving sheep, inferior to the Leicester in no particular, which 
would be very essential in such situations ; and I cannot but 
think that, for the object under consideration, those sub- 
families of it which have not been too deeply infused with 
Leicester blood, oner excellent materials for a cross. The 
different Down families will bear shorter keep than the pre- 
ceding, and will range over larger surfaces to obtain it. 
They are considerably hardier than the Leicesters, or those 
families of the improved Cotswolds which have much 
Leicester blood. They can endure slight and temporary 
deprivation of food better than the long-wools ; but it is a 
mistake to suppose that any mutton breed or family will 
fully, or profitably, attain the objects of its production, with- 
out abundance of suitable food being the ride, and depriva- 
tions of it any more than the occasional exception.* The 
Downs also produce better mutton ; and the dark legs and 
faces of the half-bloods always gives them a readier and 
better market. But the half-blood 'Downs would generally 
carry less wool than the half-blood long-wools. 

In hardiness, patience of short keep, and adaptability to 
driving long distances, any of the hall-bloods would surpass 
their English ancestors, and would, under the conditions 
already stated, generally flourish vigorously in our Western 
States. If the views here expressed of the value of such a 
cross are even approximately correct, the utility of embark- 
ing in it at once, and the immense advantages which would 
thereby accrue to individuals and to our whole country, must 
be apparent to all eyes. 

Though the crossing of mutton breeds has, in many 
instances, entirely different objects from those sought in 
crossing sheep kept specially for the production of wool, and 
though, consequently, the proper modes of crossing in the 
two cases often vary essentially, still the general views ex- 
pressed at page 130 in regard to unmeaning, aimless and 
unnecessary crossing, are as applicable to the English mutton 
sheep as to the Merino. 

Recapitulation. — I will now, for greater convenience of 
reference, recapitulate the principal positions taken in this 
chapter. 

I. That it is wholly inexpedient to cross Merino sheep with 

* I speak of course of sheep which are grown only for the butcher, the leading 
objects of whose production is high condition and early maturity. 



RULES OF CROSSING RECAPITULATED. 137 

any other breed to improve the Merino in any of the charac- 
teristics now sought in that breed. 

II. That while an infusion of Merino blood is highly 
beneficial to unimproved coarse families, to increase the 
fineness and quality of their wool, it injures the improved 
mutton races more in size, early maturity, propensity to 
fatten and prolificacy in breeding than it benefits them in 
respect to the fleece, or otherwise. 

III. That no valuable intermediate family of permanent 
hereditary character has yet been formed, or is likely to be 
formed, by crossing between Merinos and coarse sheep ; and 
that the only successful continuous cross between them is 
when the object is to merge a coarse-wooled family wholly 
in the Merino, and when the breeding is steadily continued 
toward the Merino (i. e., when no ram is ever used but the 
full-blood Merino.) 

IV. That an infusion of the blood of one coarse-wooled 
breed has been supposed, in a very few instances, to benefit 
another coarse-wooled breed, but that as a general thing it is 
much safer to avoid all crossing between distinct breeds. 

V. That crossing between different families of the same 
breed, for the purpose of obtaining permanent sub-families, 
has, both among the Merinos and English sheep, resulted 
highly favorably in many instances ; but that, nevertheless, 
the instances of failure have been much more numerous ; that 
it is not expedient to cross even different families of the same 
breed for this object, except in pursuance of a well-digested 
and definite plan, founded on some experimental knowledge 
of the subject ; and finally, that such crosses (like all others) 
should only be made when the necessary materials for the 
desired improvement cannot be found within one of the 
families (in other cases breeds) which it is proposed to cross 
together. 

VI. That crossing between different families of the same 
breed for the purpose of merging one family in another \s> 
still more likely to prove successful : but that, in attaining 
either this or the preceding object, it is desirable to unite 
families presenting the fewest differences, and to limit the 
cross to as few families as the circumstances admit of. 

VII. That for the purposes of mutton production it is 
highly expedient to breed rams of the best mutton families 
with ewes of hardier and more easily kept local families — 
but that, in such cases, it is almost uniformly advisable to 
stop with the first cross. That such a system to produce 



138 RULES OF CROSSING RECAPITULATED. 

early lambs for the butcher on sterile and exposed situations 
of the mutton region proper, or to produce earlier and better 
mutton on the natural pastures and corn-producing soils of 
the West, where its production as a leading object is 
preferred to the production of wool, would redound enor- 
mously to individual profit and to public utility. 

VIII. That with all breeds and families, crossing for the 
sake of crossing, without a definite and well understood 
object — under the vague impression that it is in itself bene- 
ficial to health or thrift, or that some benefit, the character of 
which cannot be anticipated, is likely to spring from it — is in 
the highest degree improper and absurd. That in using rams 
of the same breed and family taken from different and not 
directly related flocks, the utmost care should be used to 
select such only as conform as nearly as practicable to a 
uniform standard of qualities, which the owner should have 
previously adopted as the settled one of his flock. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
SPKING MANAGEMENT. 

CATCHING AND HANDLING — TURNING OUT TO GRASS TAG- 
GING BURS LAMBING — PROPER PLACE FOR LAMBING — 

MECHANICAL ASSISTANCE IN LAMBING INVERTED WOMB 

MANAGEMENT OF NEW-BORN LAMBS ARTIFICIAL BREED- 
ING — CHILLED LAMBS — CONSTIPATION CUTTING TEETH — 

PINNING DIARRHEA OR PURGING. 

Catching and Handling Sheep. — As nearly every 
operation of practical sheep husbandry is necessarily attended 
with the catching and handling of sheep, I will 
make these the first of those practical manipula- 
tions which I am now to describe. A sheep 
should always be caught by throwing the hands 
about the neck; or by seizing one hind leg 
immediately above the hock with the hand ; or 
by hooking the crook round it at the same place. 
When thus caught by the hand, the sheep should 
be drawn gently back until the disengaged hand 
can be placed in front of its neck. The crook 
is very convenient to react out and draw a sheep 
from a number huddled by a dog or in a corner, 
without the shepherd's making a spring for it 
and thus putting the rest to flight ; and a person 
accustomed to its use will catch moderately tame 
sheep almost anywhere with this implement. 
But it must be handled with care. It should be 
used with a quick but gentle motion — and the 
caught sheep immediately drawn back rapidly cbook*. 
enough to prevent it from springing to one side or the other, 
and thus wrenching the leg, or throwing itself down, by 
exerting its force at an angle with the line of draft in the 

* The cut represents the crook with but a small portion of the handle. This 
is made seven or eight feet long, of light, strong wood. 




140 USE OF CROOK HANDLING SHEEP. 

crook. Care must be taken not to hook the crook to a sheep 
-when it is so deep in a huddle with others that they arc liable 
to spring against the caught one, or against the handle of the 
crook, either of which may occasion a severe lateral strain on 
the leg. When the sheep is drawn within reach, the leg 
held by the crook should at once be seized by the hand, and 
the crook removed. 

A sheep should be lifted either by placing both arms 
around its body, immediately back of the fore-legs ; or by 
standing sideways to it and placing one arm before the fore- 
legs and the other behind the hind-legs; or by throwing one 
arm round the fore parts and taking up the sheep between the 
arm and the hip ; or by lifting it with the left arm under the 
brisket, the right hand grasping the thigh on the other side, 
so that the sheep lays on the left arm with its back against the 
catcher's body. The two first modes are handiest and safest 
with large sheep ; the third mode is very convenient with small 
sheep or lambs ; and a change between them all operates as a 
relief to the catcher who has a large number to handle. 

Under no circumstances whatever should a sheep be 
seized, and much less lifted, by the avooI. The skin is thus 
sometimes literally torn from the flesh, and even where this 
extent of injury is not inflicted, killing and skinning would 
invariably disclose more or less congestion occasioned by 
lacerating the cellular tissue between the skin and flesh, and 
thus prove how much purely unnecessary pain and injury has 
been inflicted on an unoffending and valuable animal, by the 
ignorance or brutality of its attendant. * 

It cannot be too strongly enforced that gentleness in 
every manipulation and movement oonnected with sheep is the 
first and one of the main conditions of success in managing 
them. They should be taught to fear no injury from man. 
They should be made tame and even affectionate — so that 
they will follow their keeper about the field — and so that, 
in the stable, they will scarcely rise to get out of his way. 
Wild sheep are constantly suffering some loss or deprivation 
themselves, and constantly occasioning some annoyance or 
damage to their owner ; and under the modern system of 
winter stable-management, it is difficult to get them through 
the yeaning season with safety to their lambs. 

•* Let him who doubts the impropriety of lifting a sheep by the wool, have himself 
lifted a few times by his hairl And let him who falls into a passion and kicks and 
thumps sheep because they crowd about him and impede his movements when feeding, 
or because they attempt to get away when he has occasion to hold them, Ac, &c, test 
the comfort and utility of these processes in the same way — by having them tried on 
himself Such a person ovgM not to lack this convinciiig Kind of experience. 



TURNING TO GRASS — TAGGING. 141 

Turning out to Grass. — In northern regions, where 
sheep are yarded and fed only on dry feed in winter, they 
should be put upon their grass feed, in the spring, gradually. 
It is better to turn them out before the new grass has started 
much, and only during a portion of each day for the first few 
days, returning them to their yards at night and feeding them 
with dry hay. If this course is pursued, they make the 
change without that purging and sudden debility which 
ensues when they are kept up later, and abruptly changed 
from entire dry to entire green feed. This last is always a 
very perilous procedure in the case of poor or weak sheep, 
particularly if they are yearlings or pregnant ewes. 

Tagging. — After the fresh grass starts vigorously in the 
spring, sheep are apt to purge or scour, notwithstanding the 
preceding precautions. The wool about and below the vent 
becomes covered with dung, which dries into hard knobs if 
the scouring ceases ; otherwise, it accumulates in a filthy 
mass which is unsightly, unhealthy, and to a certain degree 
dangerous — for maggots are not unfrequently generated 
under it. In the case of a ewe, it is a great annoyance, and 
sometimes damage to her lamb, foruthe filth trickles down the 
udder and teats so that it mingles with the milk drawn by 
the lamb, and often miserably besmears its face. I have seen 
the lamb thus prevented from attempting to suck at all. 
Whether the dung is wet or dry it cannot be washed out by 
brook washing : it must sooner or later be cut from the fleece 
and at the waste of considerable wool. 

Tagging sheep before they are let out to grass, prevents 
this. This is cutting away the wool around the 
vent and from the roots of the tail down the 
inside of the thigh, (as shown in cut,) in a strip 
wide enough so that the dung will fall to the 
ground without touching any wool. Wool on or 
about the udder which is liable to impede the 
lamb in sucking, should also be cut away — but 
not to an unnecessay degree during cold weather, so as to 
denude this delicate part of adequate protection. Tagging is 
sometimes performed by an attendant holding the sheep on 
its rump with its legs drawn apart for the convenience of the 
shearer. But it is best done by the attendant holding the 
sheep on its side on a table, or on a large box, covered, except 
at one end, and the breech of the sheep is placed at the 
opening, so that the tags will drop into it as they are cut 




142 BUKS LAMBING. 

away. This is the only safe position in which to place a 
breeding ewe for the operation, when near to lambing, unless 
it be on her feet — and tagging on the feet is excessively 
inconvenient. If a ewe is handled with violence, there is 
danger of so changing the position of the foetus in the womb 
as to render its presentation at birth more or less irregular 
and dangerous. But if the operation is performed as last 
described, and the catching and handling are done with 
proper care, there is no danger whatever. 

Burs. — Pastures containing dry weeds of the previous 
year, which bear burs or prickles liable to get into the fleece, 
should be carefully looked over before sheep are turned on 
them in the spring, and all such weeds brought together and 
burned. The common Burdock (Arctium lappa,) the large 
and small Hounds-tongue, or Tory-weed ( Cynoglossum offici- 
nale et Virginicum /*) and the wild Bur-marigold, Beggar- 
ticks, or Cuckold, (Biclens fro7idosa,) are peculiarly injurious 
to wool. The damage that a large quantity of them would do 
to half a dozen fleeces, Avould exceed the cost of exterminating 
them from a large field. The dry prickles of thistles are also 
hurtful to wool, and the\£ render it excessively disagreeable 
to wash and shear the sheep. They readily snap off in the 
fleece, when sheep are grazing about and among them in 
early spring. 

Lambing. — It used to be the aim of flock-masters in the 
Northern States, to have their lambs yeaned from about the 
1st to the 15th of May — particularly when Saxon and grade 
Saxon sheep were in vogue. Small flocks Avith abundant 
range would grow up their lambs, born even at this season, 
large and strong enough to winter well ; but in the case of 
large flocks they were not sure, or very likely to do so, except 
under highly favorable circumstances. The least scarcity of 
good fall feed told very destructively on them — and if there 
were those which were dropped as late as June, they 
generally perished before the close of winter. 

From the 15th of April to the 15th of May is now the 
pi'eferred yeaning season among a majority of Northern 
flock-masters. Some, however, have it commence as early 



* The first named variety prows at the roots of stumps and by the sides of decaying 
logs, etc., along road-sides, and in new cleared and other fields— the other grows more 
particularly in woods and thickets. The last variety has finer stems, and its burs are 
considerably smaller, but I think more difficult to remove from wool. 



PROPER PLACE FOR LAMBING. 143 

as the 1st of April, and those who breed rams for sale, as 
early as the 10th or 15 th of March. These very early lambs, if 
properly fed and kept growing, are about as much matured at 
their first, as late dropped ones are at their second shearing.* 
It is understood, of course, that lambs yeaned earlier than 
May, in the Northern States, must, as a general thing, be 
yeaned in stables. But this in reality diminishes instead of 
increasing the labors of the shepherd. The yeaning flock is 
thus kept together, and no time is spent traversing pastures 
to see if any ewe or lamb requires assistance, or in getting a 
weak lamb and its dam to shelter, or in driving in the flock 
at night and before storms. And the yeaning season may 
thus be got through with before it is time for the farmer to 
commence his summer work in the fields. 

Proper Place for Lambing. — Stable yeaning, too, is 
safest, (though I once thought otherwise,) even in quite 
pleasant weather, provided the stables are roomy, properly 
littered down and ventilated, and provided the sheep are 
sufficiently docile to allow themselves to be handled and their 
keeper to pass round among them, without crowding from side 
to side and running over their lambs. While the stables 
should not be kept hot and tight, they should be capable of 
being closed all round ; and they shoidd be so close that in 
a cold night the heat of the sheep will preserve a moderate 
temperature. On the other hand, they should be provided 
with movable windows, or ventilators, so that excess of heat, 
or impure air, can always be avoided. 

Excessive care is not requisite with hardy sheep in lamb- 
ing, and too much interference is not beneficial. It is well 
to look into the sheep -house at night, the last thing before 
going to bed, to see that all is well ; but then if all is well, 
many even of the best Merino shepherds leave their flocks 
undisturbed until morning, holding that the lamb which 
cannot get up, suck, and take care of itself until morning in 
a clean, well-strawed, comfortable stable, is not worth raising. 
Our English shepherds, who have charge of choice breeding 
flocks, usually go round once in two hours through the night 



* We have seen that Mr. Chamberlain, the importer and leading breeder of the 
Silesian Merinos in this country, has his lambs dropped from November to February. 
Under the admirable arrangements of Mr. C, and under the admirable handling of his 
German shepherd, this works well, and a lamb is rarely lost : and being early taught 
to eat roots, &c, separate from their dams, they attain a remarkable earliness of ma- 
turity. Such a system would not, of course, succeed with ordinary arrangements and 
handling, nor would it be profitable for ordinary purposes. 



144 ASSISTANCE IN LAMBING. 

during the height of the lambing season. This may be rather 
more necessary among breeds which are accustomed to bring 
forth twins — for one of a pair is less likely to be missed and 
cared for by the mother, if it accidentally gets separated from 
her. But unless the sheep are extremely tame, more harm 
than good, even in this particular, would result from disturb- 
ing them in the night. 

Mechanical Assistance in Lambing. — The Merino ewe 
rarely requires mechanical assistance in lambing. The high- 
kept English ewe requires it oftener. But in neither case 
should it be rendered, if the presentation of the lamb is 
proper, until nature has exhausted her own energies in the 
effort, and prostration begins to supervene. The labors are 
often protracted, or renewed at intervals, through many hours, 
and finally terminate successfully without the slightest interfer- 
ence. But if the ewe ceases to rise, if her efforts to expel the 
foetus are less vigorous, and her strength is obviously begin- 
ning to fail, the shepherd should approach her, without 
alarming or disturbing her, if possible, and at once render his 
aid. The natural presentation of the lamb is with the nose 
first and the fore-feet on each side of it. The shepherd with 
every throe of the sheep should draw very gently on each 
fore-leg, alternately. If this does not suffice, he should 
attempt to assist the passage of the head with his finger, 
proceding slowly and with extreme caution. If the head is 
too large to be drawn out thus gently, both the fore-legs 
must be grasped, the fingers (after being greased or oiled) 
introduced into the vagina, and the head and legs drawn 
forward together with as much force as is safe. But haste or 
violence will destroy the lamb, if not the dam also. If the 
former cannot be drawn forth by the application of considera- 
ble force, it is better to dissect it away. In these operations 
the ewe must be held by an assistant. 

If the fore-legs do not protrude far enough to be grasped, 
the head of the lamb is to be pushed back and down, which 
will generally bring them into place — or they may be felt for 
by the hand and brought into place. If the fore-legs protrude 
and the head is turned back, then the foetus must be pushed 
back into the womb, and the head brought along with the 
legs into natural position. There are several other false 
presentations, such as having the crown of the head, the side, 
back or rump come first to the mouth of the womb. The 
only directions which I can render intelligible in all such 



INVERTED WOMB. 145 

cases is to say that the lamb should be pushed back into th« 
womb, and either placed in natural position or its hinder legs 
allowed to come first into the vagina. A lamb is born 
perfectly safely with its hind feet first. In applying force to 
pull away the lamb, it should always be exerted if practicable 
simultaneously with the efforts of nature toward the same 
end, provided the throes are continued and are of reasonably 
frequent occurrence. But on the other hand, if a throe occurs 
while the hand of the operator is in the womb, he should at 
once suspend every movement until the throe is over, or else 
there will be great danger of his rupturing the womb — a 
calamity always fatal. But if the throes are suspended, or 
only recur faintly and at long intervals, and the strength is 
failing, the operator should, as a dernier resort, attempt to 
get away the lamb independently of them ; and he may even, 
where death is certain without it, use a degree of force that 
would be justifiable under no other circumstances. 

The English shepherds administer cordials to their ewes 
during protracted labors to increase their efforts or to keep 
up their strength. In some cases, they give ginger and the 
ergot of rye * — in others oatmeal gruel and linseed.f They 
also sometimes administer restoratives after long and exhaust- 
ing parturition. One of these is thus compounded: — To 
half a pint of oatmeal gruel is added a gill of sound beer 
warmed, and from two to four drachms of laudanum. This is 
given and repeated at intervals of three or four hours, as the 
case may require ; the same quantities of nitric ether being 
substituted for the laudanum if the pain is less violent and 
the animal seems to rally a little. \ The diseases occurring 
after parturition, will be mentioned among the general 
diseases of sheep. 

Inverted Womb. — The womb is sometimes inverted and 
appears externally — especially when parturition has been 
severe, and force applied for the extraction of the foetus. It 
should be very carefully cleansed of any dirt with tepid 
water — washed with strong alum-water — or a decoction of 
oak bark — and then returned. If again protruded, its return 
should be followed by taking a stitch (rather deep, to prevent 
tearing out,) with small twine, through the lips of the vagina, 

* Youatt on Sheep, 502. Amounts not stated. 

t Spooner on Sheep, 360. Amounts not stated. 

i See W. C. Sibbald's prize report " On the Diseases occurring after Parturition 
in Cows and Sheep, and their Remedies," Jour, of Royal Ag'l Soc. of England, Vol. 
12, p. 554. 

7 



146 MANAGEMENT OF NEW-BORN LAMBS. 

by means of a curved needle, and tying those lips loosely 
enough together to permit the passage of the urine. The 
parts should be washed frequently with alum- water or decoction 
of oak bark, aud some of the fluid be often injected with 
moderate force into the vagina. If this fails to effect a cure 
and the protrusion of the womb becomes habitual, it should 
be strongly corded close to the vagina (or the back of the 
sheep) and allowed to slough off. The ewe will not, of 
course, breed after this operation, but she will fatten for the 
butcher. 

Management of New -Born Lambs. — If a lamb can 
help itself from the outset, it is better not to interfere in any 
way to assist it. If the weather is mild, if the ewe apparently 
has abundance of milk, and stands kindly for her lamb, and if 
the latter is strong and disposed to help itself, there is usually 
little danger. But if the lamb is weak and makes no 
successful efforts to suck, and particularly when this occurs in 
cold or raw weather, the attendant — the " lamber," as he is 
called in England — should at once render his aid. The ewe 
should not be thrown down, if it can be avoided, but the 
lamb assisted, if necessary, to stand in the natural posture of 
sucking, a teat placed in its mouth, and its back and 
particularly the rump about the roots of its tail lightly and 
rapidly rubbed with a finger, which it mistakes for the licking 
of its dam. This last generally produces an immediate effort 
to suck. If it does not, a little milk should be milked from 
the teat into its mouth, and the licking motion of the finger 
continued. These efforts will generally succeed speedily — 
but occasionally a lamb is very stupid or very obstinate. In 
that case, gentleness and perseverance are the only remedies, 
and they will always in the end triumph. Too speedy resort 
to the spoon or sucking-bottle frequently causes a lamb to 
rely on this kind of aid, and a number of days may pass by 
before it can be taught to help itself properly, even from a full 
udder of milk. 

Artificial Feeding. — If the dam of a new-born lamb has 
not good milk ready for it, it is better to allow it to fill itself 
the first time from another ewe, or from a couple of ewes, 
which can spare the milk from their own lambs. And it is 
well to continue the same supply two or three days, if 
there is a prospect that the dam will in that time have milk — 
for ewes' milk is better for young lambs than cows' milk. If 



ARTIFICIAL FEEDING. 14V 

cows' milk must be resorted to, it should by all means be that 
of a new -milch cow. This is generally fed from a bottle 
having on its nose an artificial India-rubber lambs' nipple — 
now manufactured and sold for the express purpose. But 
milk flows less freely from a bottle than from a vessel having 
two vents, and accordingly tea-pots, or other vessels manufac- 
tured for the purpose, with spouts so constructed as to hold 
the aitificial nipple, are now more used.* Milk should be 
fed at about its natural temperature — but when cold, never 
be heated rapidly enough to scald it, which renders it 
costive in its effects. A new-born lamb fed on other ewes', 
or on cows' milk, should be fed about six times, at equal 
intervals between sun -rise and ten o'clock at night, and 
allowed each time to take all it wants, f After two or three 
days it need not be fed so often. 

Some farmers feed from a spoon instead of a nipple — 
others milk directly from a cow's teat into the mouth of the 
lamb. By neither mode is the habit and disposition to suck 
as well preserved — and by both modes, and especially by 
the last, there is great danger of the milk entering the 
throat so rapidly that a portion of it will be forced into the 
lungs. If the strangulation of the weak little animal at the 
time passes unnoticed by the careless "lamber," a rattling 
sound will soon be heard in the lungs, accompanying each 
respiration ; and it is a death - rattle. I never knew one to 
recover. 

A farrow cow's milk is unsuited to young lambs, and it is 
very difficult to raise them on it. When it must be used, it 
is generally mixed with a little "sale" molasses, as that made 
from the cane is familiarly termed, to distinguish it from 
domestic or maple molasses, which is not supposed to be 
equally purgative in its effects. Others do not mix molasses 
with the milk, but in lieu of it, administer a teaspoonful of 
lard to the lamb every other day. J A farmer of my acquaint- 
ance who is very successful in raising lambs, feeds in such 
cases beaten eggs with, or in the place of, milk. This is a 
highly nutritious food, and he informs me that it is quite as 



* My friend, Mr. Rich, has; devised a good substitute by winding cloth around the 
spout of a lamp-filler, so that it will hold the artificial nipple. 

t Some persons do not allow lambs thus to fill themselves at first. If the lamb is 
fed soon after birth, and then as often as above recommended, it is decidedly best. 
But if a lamb has been for some hours deprived of food at birth — or is subsequently 
kept on very scanty feed — a sudden admission to an unbounded supply is undoubtedly 
hurtful and dangerous. 

t Some persons mix molasses, and others molasses and water, with new milch 
cows milk. 1 used to do this, but have come to the conclusion that it is inexpedient. 



148 CIIILLKI> LAMUS. 

pood for the lamb as new milk, and that it passes the bowels 
freely, without being too laxative. 

CniLLED Lambs. — When a lamb is found "chilled" in 
cold weather, i. e., unable to move, or swallow, and perhaps 
with its jaws "set," no time is to be lost. It can not be 
restored by mere friction ; and if only wrapped in a blanket 
and put in a warm room, it will inevitably die. It should at 
once be placed in a heated oven, or in a bath of water about as 
hot as can be comfortably borne by the hand. The restoration 
must be immediate, and to effect this the degree of warmth 
applied greater than an inexperienced person would suppose a 
lamb capable of enduring. Where neither oven nor water are 
ready, (one of these always ought to be ready at such times 
in the farm house,) the lamb should be held over a fire or 
over coals, constantly turning it, rubbing it with the hands, 
bending its joints, etc. On taking it from the water it should 
be rubbed thoroughly dry. If sufficient animation is restored 
for it to suck, and it at once fills itself, the danger is over. 
But if it revives slowly, or remains too weak or languid to 
suck, it should, as soon as it can swallow,* receive from half to 
a full teaspoonful of gin, whiskey or other spirits, mixed with 
enough milk for a feed — the amount of the spirits being 
proportioned to the size and apparent necessities of the lamb. 

If taken to the stable to suck it should be wrapped in a 
woolen blanket while on the way, if the cold is severe ; and 
the temperature of the stable will decide whether it is safe to 
leave it there, or whether it should be returned to the house 
for a few hours longer. If returned, it should not be placed 
in a room heated above the common temperature of those 
occupied by a family. It is astonishing from how near a point 
to death lambs can be restored by the above means. It often 
appears literally like a re -animation of the dead. 

If a lamb is found beginning to be chilled — inactive, 
stupid, but still able to swallow — the dose of spirits above 
recommended acts on it like a charm. If it will not drink the 
mixture from the sucking bottle — which is scarcely to be 
expected — it must be poured down it carefully with a spoon, 
giving ample time to swallow. Some administer ground black 
pepper in the place of spirits. It is not so prompt or so 
decided in its effects, and its effects do not so rapidly pass 
away, leaving the restored functions to their natural action. 

* Under no possible circumstances should fluid be poured down the throat before 
the lamb can swallow. 



CONSTIPATION OK COSTIVENESS. 149 

But, in emergency, any stimulus should be resorted to which 
is not likely to he followed with directly injurious results. 
One of the most skillful shepherds in the United States 
administers strong tea in such cases — in extreme ones, tea 
laced with gin. 

All lambs which get an insufficient supply of milk from 
their dams, or from other ewes, should regularly be fed cows' 
milk from the sucking bottle two or three times a day, until 
the amount given by the dam can be increased by better 
keeping. They will learn to come for it as regularly as lambs 
brought up entirely by hand. If the sheep are not yet let out 
to grass, those deficient in milk should, with their lambs, be 
separated from the flock and fed the choicest of hay and roots, 
oatmeal, bran-slop or the like. Some persons partition off a 
little place with slats which stop the sheep, but which allow 
the free ingress and egress of the lambs ; and in this they put 
a rack of hay for the lambs, and a trough into which is daily 
sprinkled a little meal. The lambs soon learn to eat hay and 
meal, and it benefits them as much in proportion as grown 
sheep.* 

Constipation or Costiveness. — Lambs fed on cows' 
milk, or fed on any milk artificially, are quite ^subject to 
constipation. The first milk of the mother, too, sometimes 
produces this effect, f A lamb that gets strayed from its dam 
for several hours and then surfeits itself on a full udder of 
milk — or one that is changed, after it is several days old, 
from one ewe to another — is subject to constipation. In all 
these cases the evacuations cease, or they are hard and are 
expelled with great difficulty. The lamb becomes dull, 
drooping, disinclined to move about, and lies down most of 
the time. Its belly or sides usually appear a little more 
distended than usual. It becomes torpid — sleeps most of the 

* Mr. Chamberlain's Silesian lambs, yeaned in early winter, are thus fed separately 
all winter — but they, according to the German custom, are caught out of the flock, 
and confined in a separate place during most of each day. They eat at their racks and 
troughs as regularly as the old sheep. This undoubtedly materially contributes to the 
extraordinary size they obtain the first year. The poet Burns had a good idea of a 
shepherd's duties! Among the "Dying words of Poor Mailie," to be borne to her 
" Master dear," are the following, in respect to her " helpless lambs " left to his care : 
" O bid him save their harmless lives 

Frae dogs, 'an tods, an' butchers' knives ! 

But gie them guid cow milk their fill, 

Till they be fit to fend themsei' ; 

An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 

Wi' teats o' hay an' rips o' corn." 

+ While the ewes are in the yards and before they are let out to grass. After 
being let out to grass, I think the milk of the mother very rarely produces this effect. 



]50 CUTTING TEETH. 

ti, llc — ;in ,l if not relieved speedily dies. This not unfre- 
quently happens when the lamb is a number of days old and 
had previously appeared healthy. Constipation is liable to 
attack the same lamb several times if the exciting cause's are 
continued. Cathartics arc not rapid enough in their action to 
meet the case at the stage when it is generally first observed. 
An injection of milk warmed to blood heat, with a sufficient 
infusion of molasses to give it a chocolate color, should at 
once be administered with a small syringe — say two ounces 
at a time for a small lamb, and three for a larger one.* The 
lamb is held up perpendicularly by the hind-legs, so that the 
fore-feet but just touch the floor, during and for a moment 
after the injection. If hardened dung is not discharged with 
the fluid, or soon afterwards, the injection is to be repeated. 
This process generally gives prompt and entire relief, but if 
the lamb continues inactive and dull, the tonic contained in 
half a dozen teaspoonfulls of strong boneset or thoroughwort 
{Eupatorium perfoliatuin) tea, has an excellent effect. And 
where, as it often happens, the urinary action is also insufficient, 
pumpkin seed tea is the readiest and safest remedy in the 
hands of most farmers. The syringe and the injection 
constitute the very sheet-anchor of artificial lamb raising. 
The flock-master had better be without all other remedies 
than these. 

There is another form of constipation occurring to very 
young lambs, with their first evacuations. The dung (yet of a 
bright yellow color) is so pasty and sticky that it is voided 
with great effort, and the lamb sometimes utters short bleats, 
expressive of considerable pain, in the process. The injection 
is here also the most rapid remedy ; but two or three spoonfuls 
of hogs' lard administered as a purgative, will usually answer 
the same purpose. 

Cutting Teeth. — Sometimes a healthy looking lamb 
seems strangely disinclined to suck. It seizes the teat as if 
very hungry, but soon relinquishes it. It repeats this perhaps 
once or twice, and then gives up the attempt. On examining 
its mouth it will be found that the front teeth are not through 
the gums, and that the latter, over the edges of the teeth, are 
sufficiently inflamed to be very tender. Drawing the back of 
the thumb nail across the teeth with sufficient force to press 

* It is not necessary to be exact. There are about eight ounces Jn half a pint of 
fluid ; and the ordinary teacup or water-tumbler hold half a pint. 



PINNING — DI AEEHE A . 151 

them up through the gums, is the usual resort; but a keen- 
edged knife or lancet inflicts less pain and leaves the 
inflammation to subside more rapidly. It generally, however, 
subsides in either case in a few hours ; but it is well enough to 
watch both the lamb and the ewe to see that the former does 
not suffer for food, and that the udder of the latter is properly 
drawn. 

Pinning. — The first yellow, gummy excrements of the 
lamb often adhere to the tail and about the vent, and if 
suffered to harden there, pin down the tail to the breech and 
hinder or entirely prevent later evacuations. The dung should 
be carefully removed and the parts rubbed with pulverized 
dry clay, chalk, or, in the absence of anything better, dirt. 
If there is a tendency to a recurrence of the pinning, docking 
the tail lessens the danger. 

Diaeehea oe Pueging. — Lambs which suck their dams, 
very rarely purge, and if they do, they usually scarcely 
require attention. If a fed lamb purges, the cause should be 
ascertained and discontinued — and a spoonful of prepared 
chalk given in milk, and the dose repeated after a few hours, 
if necessary. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SPEING- MANAGEMENT - CONTINUED. 

CONGENITAL GOITRE IMPERFECTLY DEVELOPED LAMBS 

RHEUMATISM TREATMENT OF THE EWE AFTER LAMBING 

CLOSED TEATS UNEASINESS INFLAMED UDDER 

DRYING OFF DISOWNING LAMBS FOSTER LAMBS — 

DOCKING LAMBS CASTRATION. 

Congenital Goitre, or Swelled Neck. — The thyroid 
glands are small, soft, spongy bodies on each side of the upper 
portion of the trachea, (wind -pipe.) Lambs are sometimes 
born with them enlarged to once or twice the size of an 
almond, and they then have the feeling of a firm, separate body, 
lying between the cellular tissue and the muscles of the neck. 
The lamb thus affected is generally small and lean, or if it 
is large and plump it has a soft, jelly-like feeling, as if its 
muscular tissues were imperfectly developed. In either case, 
the bones are unnaturally small. It is excessively weak — 
the plump, soft ones being often unable to stand, and usually 
dying soon after birth. The others perhaps linger a little 
longer — sometimes several days — but they perish on the 
least exposure. So far as my observations have extended this 
condition always, to a greater or lesser extent, accompanies 
the glandular enlargement imder consideration ; but it also 
appears without it, and, as I shall presently show, sometimes 
to a highly destructive extent. 

Having early adopted tho view that the preservation of 
the life of a lamb, which is incapable of attaining that full 
structural development on which the vigor of the constitution 
depends, is a loss instead of a gain — and being specially 
averse to tolerating in a breeding flock any animal even 
suspected of being capable of carrying along and transmitting 
a hereditary disease — I never have applied any remedy 
whatever for " swelled neck." I have seen very little of it 
for the last few years; but events in 1862, presently to be 
mentioned, have surrounded the subject with new interest, 



CONGENITAL GOITRE. 153 

and I now regret that I have not experimented more fully in 
order to ascertain the precise nature of the malady. 

I have learned some new facts in relation to it. Two or 
three lambs which I saw, in 1862, decidedly affected by it, 
but not as weak or as attenuated in the bony structures as 
usual, very rapidly threw off all appearance of the goitrous 
enlargement of the glands ; and they thenceforth grew about 
as rapidly and appeared about as strong as ordinary lambs. 
I saw another such case in 1863. I made no memorandum of 
the facts at the time, but my inrpression is that in all these 
instances the enlargement of the thyroid glands disappeared 
within the space of as short a period as a fortnight. An 
intelligent friend informed me that having some goitrous 
lambs in his flock, last spring, he placed a bandage round the 
neck of each over the thyroid glands, and wet it a few times 
a day with camphor (dissolved in alcohol.) The swelling, he 
thinks, disappeared in less time than a fortnight. Mr. Daniel 
Kelly, Jr., of Wheaton, Illinois, who is represented to be a 
highly successful flock-master, states in an article in the Rural 
New-Yorker, that the disease is frequent among his lambs; 
that he binds a woolen cloth about their necks and keeps it 
wet " with spirits of camphor or the tincture of iodine " — 
that " there is little, if any, difference in the effectiveness of 
these tinctures" — that either "is sure to cure them."* 

These facts would seem to add to the number of anomalous 
features of the malady, when they are compared with those 
which appear in the human subject of goitre, if indeed it is 
the same malady ; f and they suggest some doubts of the latter 
fact. But fortunately no question affecting the practical 
treatment of the disease is to be settled by the determination 
of that identity. It would now seem that mere evaporants 
and external stimulants rapidly control it. Should the fact 
be found otherwise, in the case of a lamb worth saving, the 
application of iodine would undoubtedly remove the glandular 



* I should rather say the article is published under the head of Western Editorial 
Notes. Mr. C. D. Bragdon giving the statements as he received them from Mr. Kelly. 

t I was the first public writer, so far as I know, who classified the " swelled 
neck " of lambs as goitre or bronchocele, (in Sheep Husbandry in the South,) — 
though conscious then that some of its conditions were very different from those 
generally exhibited in the human subject of that disease. These exceptional condi- 
tions were : — 1. That it was so often congenital ; 2. That it so frequently affected the 
progeny of parents that were not themselves subjects of the disease or known ever 
to have been subjects of it ; and 3. That it should so often affect young animals, 
and so comparatively rarely affect grown ones. The additional anomalies disclosed 
by the facts stated in the text (if they are facts,) are the following : — 4. The very sudden 
and spontaneous disappearance of the supposed goitrous enlargement. 5. Its sudden 
disappearance on the application of camphor, and the apparent equal power possessed 
by camphor and iodine to cause its absorption. 



154 IMPERFECTLY DEVELOPED LAMBS. 

enlargement. It might be applied to the parts with a little 
less trouble in the form of an ointment, composed of one part 
by weight of hydriodate of potash to seven parts of lard. 

Imperfectly Developed Lambs. — Aside from abortions 
and premature births, lambs are sometimes yeaned of the 
feeble and imperfect class described under the preceding 
head, but apparently exhibiting no specific form of disease. 
The plump, soft ones, and perhaps some of the others, are 
frequently so colorless about the nose, eyes and the skin 
generally, that they have the appearance of being nearly 
destitute of blood. The small ones are often almost destitute 
of the ordinary Avooly coating. This, with their diminutive 
size, the smallness of their bones, the remarkable delicacy of 
their tissues, their general appearance of fragility, and their 
feeble, languid movements, gives them so much resemblance 
to prematurely born lambs, that the observer finds it difficult 
to believe they are not so, until dates and other circumstances 
are investigated. 

Far more of these imperfect lambs were produced in 1862 
than in any other year within my recollection. Some counties 
in New York lost twenty-five and others probably thirty-three 
per cent, of their entire number, and the mortality is said to 
have extended to a greater or lesser degree further west. I 
saw large numbers of these imperfect and perishing lambs. 
A few, in some of the flocks, were affected by goitre, but in 
others there was not an instance of it; and taking all I 
saw together, not five per cent, of them were affected by that, 
or, so far as I could discover, any other specific disease. 

Any mode of treating lambs which are in the condition I 
have described, so that they will, in more than an occasional 
instance, ultimately attain the average size and the average 
integrity of structures and functions possessed by good sheep, 
is, according to my experience, wholly out of the question ; 
and the bestowal of excessive care merely to preserve the life 
of an animal essentially lacking in the above particulars, is, as 
remarked under the preceding head, labor thrown away: 
indeed, it is much worse than thrown away if the animal is 
suffered to remain in a breeding flock. No good sheep 
breeder would permit this. And even if the subsequent 
structural development appeared to become about as complete 
as usual, I confess I should still feel decidedly averse to 
breeding from such an animal. In the case of a ram, I should 
regard it as inexcusable. We cannot too jealously guard our 



. RHEUMATISM. 155 

flocks from the remotest predispositions to hereditary defect, 
especially in the cardinal point of constitution. I fully concur 
in this particular with Mr. George "W. Kendall, of Texas, 
who, on ordering some rams of me for the use of his flock, 
sent the following "particular description " of the points 
which he wished to have regarded in their selection : he said 
they must have, "1st, constitution; 2d, constitution; 3d, 
constitution." And a congenital defect of any kind, whether 
ostensibly removed or unremoved, should be a subject of 
peculiar apprehension, from the stronger probability which 
exists of its being hereditary. Acting under these views, 
my directions in regard to my own flocks have always been 
to give all lambs of the class under consideration merely good 
care, and if that prove insufficient, to let them die. If they 
live until fall, they are sold for any trifle they will fetch as 
avowedly imperfect lambs, or are given away. 

The causes which lead to the production of these 
imperfectly developed lambs will receive some attention 
when I treat of the winter management of breeding ewes. 

Rheumatism. — Lambs on being first turned out of warm, 
dry, and well-littered yards and stables into the pastures 
where they lie on the damp ground, and where they are for 
the first time exposed to cold rains and chilly winds, some- 
times exhibit symptoms which, with the present limited 
information which I possess on the subject, I can only classify 
as rheumatism. The lamb suddenly becomes unable to walk 
except with difficulty. It is lame in the loins, and the hind 
quarters are nearly powerless ; or it partly loses the use of all 
the legs, without the back appearing to be particularly 
affected ; the legs, either from pain or weakness, are unable 
to support the weight of the body ; the lamb hobbles about, 
and occasionally becomes wholly unable to walk. The neck 
sometimes becomes stiff, is firmly drawn down, and is 
perhaps drawn to one side.* Usually there is not much 
appearance of constitutional disease. The lamb seems to be 
bright and feeds well. But in some cases, a hollowness and 
heaving at the flank indicate a degree of fever. Those unable 
to rise, and those whose necks are so drawn down that they 
cannot reach the teat, would soon perish without assistance ; 
but in no other way do any of the forms of the disease, as 
a general thing, very strongly tend to fatal resirits. 

* I was not at first disposed to consider this the result of the same disease — but I 
now have very little doubt of this fact. 



156 TREATMENT OF EWES AFTER LAMBING. 

So far as my information extends, this malady is new, 
infrequent, and in any other form than "stiff neck" is yet 
limited to comparatively i'w localities in our country. 
Warmth, dryness, non-exposure to the damp ground, etc., 
and the careful feeding (from the teats of their dams) of those 
unable to suck, are conditions necessary to recovery ; and as 
the weather becomes warm and settled it generally disappears 
without other remedies. In a few cases, however, it has 
proved quite destructive. Mr. Luther Baker, of Lafayette, 
New York, had a very valuable flock of Merino ewes, about 
20 per cent, of the lambs of which died one year, and 50 per 
cent, another, of this malady — though his sheep were very 
carefully and judiciously managed. This is by far the severest 
mortality which has come to my knowledge. Mr. Baker then 
put his ewes to ram so the lambs would not come until the 
flock began to be turned to grass, and the malady almost 
entirely disappeared. The present year (1863) he had but 
two or three cases, and these were promptly cured by 
administering three spoonfuls of lard and one spoonful of 
turpentine, once or twice, as required, to each lamb. Some 
of Mr. Baker's neighbors who had one or two diseased Lambs 
apiece, made use of the same remedy with equal success. 
The dose above mentioned may prove rather large for a very 
young lamb. Its constituents render it an appropriate internal 
remedy for rheumatism. The cathartic, and the stimulating 
and diuretic properties of the turpentine, are called for. Mr. 
Spooner recommends (for a grown sheep) two ounces cpsom 
salts, one drachm of ginger and half an ounce of spirit of 
nitrous ether — rubbing the affected parts with stimulants, 
like hartshorn or opodeldoc; and he says if the disease 
assumes a chronic form, a seaton should be inserted near the 
part. Rheumatism in grown sheep, or chronic rheumatism in 
lambs, appears to be yet unknown in the United States. 

Treatment of the Ewe after Lambing. — Every sound 
principle of physiology goes to show that the ewe, like every 
other domestic animal, and like the female human being, 
should be suffered to remain as quiet as possible for some 
time after parturition. To drive her for any considerable 
distance immediately after her lamb drops, Avhen exhausted 
with her labors, and when her womb remains fully distended, 
is cruel and injurious ; " hounding " her with a shepherd's 
dog, in that situation, as is sometimes done in driving, because 
she lingers behind the flock, is to the last degree brutal. 



CLOSED TEATS UNEASINESS INFLAMED UDDER. 157 

As already said, there should be no hasty interference 
with a new-born lamb, if it appears to be doing well. But if, 
on making the usual effort, it fails to obtain a supply of milk, 
the ewe should at once be examined. The natural flow of 
milk does not always, particularly in young ewes, commence 
immediately after lambing, though in a few hours it may be 
abundant. In this case the lamb should be fed, in the mean- 
time, artificially. If from the smallness of the udder or other 
indications, there is a prospect that the supply of milk will be 
permanently small, the ewe should be separated from the 
flock and nursed with better feed, as mentioned in preceding 
Chapter. Some careful flock-masters separate from the flock 
all the two-year-old breeding ewes, and all the old and Aveak 
ones, either a few days before, or immediately after lambing, 
and give them feed especially intended to promote the 
secretion of milk. 

Closed Teats. — Sometimes when a ewe has a full 
udder of milk the opening of the teats are so firmly closed 
that the lamb can not force them open. The pressure of the 
human fingers, lubricated with spittle to prevent chafing or 
straining the skin, will readily remove the difficulty. If the 
teat has been cut off by the shearer and has healed up so as to 
leave no opening, it should be re-opened with a needle, and 
this followed by inserting a small, smooth, round-ended wire, 
heated sufficiently to cauterize the parts very moderately. 
Neither of these should enter the teat but a little way — 
barely sufficient to permit the milk to flow out. The sucking 
of the lamb will generally keep the orifice open — but it may 
require a little looking to and the application of something 
calculated to allay inflammation. 

Uneasiness. — A young ewe, owing partly, perhaps, to 
the novelty of her situation, and partly sometimes either to 
her excessive fondness for, or indifference toward her lamb, 
will not stand for it to suck. As soon as it makes the 
attempt, she will turn about to caress it, or will step a little 
away. In cold weather, she may thus interpose a dangerous 
delay to its feeding. If she is caught and held by the neck 
until the udder is once well drawn out, she will generally 
require no further attention. 

Inflamed Udder. — But a ewe that refuses thus to stand 
will sometimes be found to have a hot, hard, inflamed or 



158 DRYING OFF DISOWNING LAMBS. 

"caked" udder — particularly if she is in high condition, and 
lambs late in the season. In this case, the udder should be 
fomented frequently for some time with hot water containing 
a Blight infusion of opium, obtained from the crude article, 
from laudanum or from steeped poppy leaves. The oftener 
the fomentation is repeated the sooner the inflammation will 
subside and the proper flow of milk ensue. Repeated 
washings with cold water Avill produce the same effect, but 
less rapidly, and I think with a less favorable influence on the 
subsequent secretions of milk. If a ewe has lost her lamb, and 
from neglect the udder has become swollen and indurations 
have formed in it, the iodine ointment is one of the best 
applications. (For further particulars, see Garget, among 
Diseases of Sheep.) 

Drying Off. — If a grown ewe having a full udder of 
milk loses her lamb, she should receive a foster lamb, or be 
reseiwed to give temporary supplies of milk to the new-born 
lambs requiring it. But if it becomes necessary to dry off a 
ewe, even a young one not having much milk, she should, if 
convenient, be fed on dry feed, and care taken to milk out 
the udder as often as once a day for several days, and a fe w 
times afterwards, as # may appear necessary, at intervals of 
increasing length. The daily application of an evaporant — 
say water with 15 grains of sugar of lead dissolved in a pint 
— would facilitate the process. I am satisfied that many of 
the troubles shepherds experience in raising lambs arc 
produced or greatly increased by the very careless manner 
in which ewes are habitually dried off. 

Disowning Lambs. — Ewes, and especially young or very 
poor ones, or those which have been prostrated by difficult 
parturition, occasionally refuse to own their lambs or are 
exceedingly neglectful of them. When, notwithstanding, it 
is advisable to compel the ewe to raise her lamb, both should 
immediately be separated from the flock and placed in a small, 
dark inclosure together, and if convenient out of hearing of 
other sheep — care being taken to hold the ewe, at first, as often 
as five or six times a day for the lamb to suck. As soon as 
she takes to it, she may be let out; but for a few days she 
should be let out only with her lamb, and be closely watched, 
for when she mixes with other sheep as soon as she regains 
her liberty, her indifference sometimes returns. It is very 



PENS — FOSTER LAMBS. 159 

convenient to attach some peculiar paint mark both to the 
ewe and lamb, so that they can be readily recognized. If a 
ewe is obstinate about accepting her lamb, frightening her 
sometimes aids to arouse her maternal instincts. Some 
shepherds show her a strange dog, a child wearing a bright 
colored mantle, or the like. I never chanced to suffer 
inconvenience by it, but I am informed by good shepherds 
that on driving nocks of ewes with new-born lambs, when they 
are wet, into a crowded barn, and keeping them there for 
some time, it produces great confusion in the recognition of 
lambs, particularly by the young ewes: and my informants 
attributed this to the lambs rubbing together, and thus 
blending or disguising those odors by which each ewe is 
supposed alone to distinguish her own lamb, until she 
becomes accustomed to recognize it by sight and by its voice. 
If a ewe exhibits the least indifference to her lamb when it is 
firstborn — or if it is quite weak, or in a crowded stable, 
or requires help of any kind, a pen should be immediately 
brought and placed around them. 

Pens. — Every breeding barn should be provided with 
a dozen or two of pens, ready made, and hung up on pegs 
overhead. They should be about three by three and a half, or 
three and a half by four feet in dimensions, very light but 
strong; and in field lambing, canvas covers on top and 
one canvas side cover to a few of them would be highly 
convenient to keep off rain and cold winds. 

Foster Lambs. — If a ewe having a good udder of milk 
loses her lamb, and a young or feeble ewe disowns hers, or 
is unable to raise it properly, the lamb of the latter should 
be transferred to the former. This can usually be readily 
effected. If the skin of the foster dam's lamb can be taken 
off soon after death, and fastened on the lamb she is required 
to adopt, she will generally take to it at once or after only a 
moment's hesitation. Neither the head, legs nor tail of the 
skin need to be retained. It should be fastened by strings 
(sewed through the edges of it,) tied under the neck and 
body — the labor of a moment — and that is all that is 
required. Those persons, already mentioned, who transfer 
all the lambs of their two-year old ewes to foster dams, in 
some instances put good-milking coarse ewes to ram at the 
same time with their young ewes, or a trifle later. These are 



160 DOCKING LAMHS. 

watched and when one yeans, her lamb is immediately taken 
away, it' practicable, before she sees it. The foster lamb is 
rubbed about in "the waters," (amniotic fluid,) blood, etc., 
which accompanies the "cleanings," (placenta,) and then is 
left Avith her in a pen. She generally does not suspect the 
substitution, or if she does, after a short delay the adoption 
on both sides becomes complete. When neither of the above 
modes is available, the ewe required to adopt a lamb is 
treated like one which disowns her own. Some take to them 
pretty readily ; others exhibit great obstinacy. If the ewe is 
confined long in a pen, she should be given feed calculated to 
produce milk, or should, after a little, be let out daily in a 
small, green paddock alone with the lamb. 

Docking Lambs. — This is most safely performed when the 
lamb is not over two or three weeks old. Some experienced 
shepherds do it well, on simply having the lamb lifted by an 
attendant and its breech held toward them — the lamb being 
held with its back uppermost and in about the same position 
as if it was standing on the ground. The shepherd seizes the; 
tail with one hand, places the knife under and cuts up and 
toward himself, with a swift, firm motion. But an inexpe- 
rienced person attempting this, will cut the tails of different 
lengths, cut off some of them obliquely, and will occasionally 
leave the bone projecting half an inch outside of the skin, to 
heal over slowly and cause a vast deal of unnecessary pain. 
This last is sure to occur in a good share of cases if an 
unfeeling booby performs the operation, without an attendant, 
holding the lamb by the tail as it stands on the ground pulling 
with all its might to escape.* A flock of choice sheep owe 
too much to the neat and uniform appearance of their tails — 
especially among the Merinos, where it has become a "fancy 
j>oint" — not to have the process well performed. The safest 
mode is to have an attendant hold the lamb, upright but 
Leaning back, w T ith its rump resting on a block, and the hind- 
legs drawn up out of the way. The shepherd with his right 
hand fore-finger and thumb slides the skin of the tail toward 
the body, places a two or three inch chisel across the tail, 
with his left hand — pressing it down enough to keep the 
skin slidden toward the body; and taking a mallet in the right 
hand he severs the tail at a blow. The tail of the Merino 
should be left barely long enough to cover the anus and 

* I knew a brutal fellow who, cutting thus, with all his strength, severed not 
only the tail but one of the hind-legs of a lamb. 



CASTRATION. 161 

vagina. The breeders of English sheep usually leave it three 
or four inches long. 

Docking is best performed in cool, dry weather, and the 
lambs should not be previously heated by chasing or even 
driving them fast. The flock should be driven into a stable, 
the lambs caught out, one by one, and as they are docked 
placed in another apartment. The tails of the rams should be 
thrown into one pile and those of the ewes into another, so 
that when the docking is done, a count of each pile will give 
the number of each sex ; and this should then and there be 
recorded in the "Sheep Book" of the farm. It is well, also, 
to mark those of one sex with a brand, or a dot made by the 
end of a cob dipped in paint, to facilitate later separations. 
Sometimes, though very rarely, a lamb bleeds to death from 
docking. This generally can be stopped by a tightly drawn 
ligature. If this fails, resort should at once be had to actual 
cautery — the red - hot iron. If lambs are docked after the 
weather becomes quite hot, it is advisable to apply a mixture of 
tar, butter and turpentine to the parts. I this year saw eighty 
lambs, docked on the 7th of July, with their tails swollen and 
covered with small maggots, for the want of some such 
application to keep away the fly. The scrotums of the 
castrated ones were also filled with maggots. Docking is 
necessary to guard against filthiness. Maggots, too, are 
liable to be produced under that filth, and to cause the 
death of the animal. And, finally, habit has rendered a long 
tail an unsightly appendage to the sheep. 

Castration — Is usually performed at' the same time with 
docking — but it is rather severe on the young lamb to do 
both at the same time. Some, therefore, put off castration a 
few days later. It should be performed with still more care 
in regard to the weather, heating the lamb in advance, etc. 
An attendant holds the lamb (with a fore and hind-leg grasped 
in each hand,) in an upright position, with its back placed 
against his OAvn body. He draws the hind-legs up and apart, 
and presses against the lamb's body with sufficient force to 
cause the lower part of the belly to protnide between the 
thighs and the scrotum to be well exposed. The operator 
then cuts off about one-third of the scrotum ; takes each testicle 
in turn between the thumb and fore-finger, and after sliding 
down the loose enveloping membrane to the spermatic chord, 
pulls out the testicle with a moderately quick but not violently 
jerking motion. The connecting tissues (of the spermatic 



162 CASTRATION. 

cord) snap with very little bleeding.* If they snap so that 
a portion of the nerve adhering to the body remains exposed, 
it should be cut off. Tar, butter and turpentine should be 
applied to the parts. 

* Some foreign shepherds have various absurd processes of severing the last 
attachments, before the entire spermatic cord snaps asunder. Some chew ihem off — 
others cut them oil' by rubbing the thumb nail across them. Mr. Spooner recom- 
mends, even in the case of a young lamb, to put iron clams on the spermatic cords 
and to divide them with a hot iron. 

I have given the process, in the text, as it is generally performed, and as it is 
always performed among my own sheep. But there is no denying that pulling out 
the testicle in this way often draws out the spermatic nerves (plexus tcsticulwres) eo 
that they do not snap within three, or even four inches of the testicles. The remain- 
ing part, of course, retracts within the abdominal ring, which must certainly be 
injurious, and might, with an animal less capable of enduring all sorts of mistreat- 
ment, have serious consequences. I have tolerated the practice because thus tearing 
the spermatic cord asunder, prevents bleeding ; and the hot iron, etc., are inconven- 
ient. Pulling out the testicle far enough and severing it with a hot iron (without 
using the clams) might also sufficiently prevent bleeding. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SUMMEE MANAGEMENT. 

MODE OF WASHING SHEEP UTILITY OF WASHING CONSID- 
ERED CUTTING THE HOOFS TIME BETWEEN WASHING 

AND SHEARING SHEARING STUBBLE SHEARING AND 

TRIMMING SHEARING LAMBS AND SHEARING SHEEP SEMI- 
ANNUALLY — DOING UP WOOL — FRAUDS IN DOING UP 

WOOL STORING WOOL PLACE FOR SELLING WOOL 

WOOL DEPOTS AND COMMISSION STORES SACKING WOOL. 

Modes of Washing Sheep. — Sheep are now washed, 
in the Northern States, somewhat earlier than formerly — 
usually between the first and fifteenth of June — as early 
as the warmth of the streams will admit. When it used 
to be considered an object to sell clean wool, it was the 
common practice to wash fine-wooled sheep under the fall of 
a mill-dam ; or to make an artificial fall by damming up a 
small stream, conducting its water a few feet in a race, and 
having it fall thence a couple of feet into a tub or washing vat. 
The vat was a strong box, large enough to hold four sheep 
at a time. It was from three and a half to four feet deep, 
about two and a half feet of it rising above the surrounding 
platform for the washers, and the remaining portion being 
sunk in the ground. The sheep were penned close at hand, 
and the lambs immediately taken out to prevent their 
being trampled under foot. Two washers generally worked 
together, and a catcher brought the sheep to them. If the 
sheep were dry, four were usually placed in the vat together, 
so that two were soaking while two were being washed. 
Every part of each fleece was exposed for a short time to the 
full force of the descending current. The dirtier parts, the 
breech, belly and neck, were thoroughly squeezed, (by 
pressing the wool together in masses between the palms of 
the hands,) and these operations continued until the water 
ran entirely clear from the fleece. The animal was then 



1G4 WASHING SHEEP CONSIDERED. 

grasped by the fore parts, plunged down deep into the water 
and the re-bound taken advantage of to lift it over the edges 
of the vat without touching them. It was set carefully on its 
foot, and, if old or weak, a portion of the Avater was pressed 
from the fleece. Washing under a mill-dam was performed 
in substantially the same manner, except that the washers 
were compelled to stand in the water. 

These modes rendered wool quite too clean for the 
fashion of the present day. The reasons for the change have 
been elsewhere adverted to. The object now is, with a large 
proportion of the growers, to see how little they can wash 
their wool and yet have it sell as "washed wool." It would 
be difficult, if indeed desirable, to give any instructions on 
this head! English sheep require very little washing 
compared w r ith the Merino, and it can be done with sufficient 
expedition and thoroughness in any clear, running water of 
proper depth. 

Uttt/ity of Washing Considered. — The utility of 
washing sheep before shearing is now the subject of a good 
deal of discussion. One class of producers advocate it on 
the ground that it prevents a useless transportation of dirt to 
market, that it improves the saleableness of w T ool, and that it 
avoids the operation of an unequal rule of shrinkage applied 
by buyers indiscriminately to all unwashed wools. Another 
class of producers contend that it is injurious to the health 
of sheep ; that it renders shearing impracticable at that period 
which best tends both to the comfort and productiveness of 
the animal, and which enables the producer to avail himself 
of the early wool markets; that it subjects sheep to the 
danger of contracting contagious diseases ; and, finally, that 
any custom of buying, or conventional rule of shrinkage, 
which is found unfair in itself or opposed to public utility, 
should be promptly abandoned. 

The objection to transporting dirt is a good one, unless it 
secures some advantage which counterbalances its cost. I 
am satisfied that washing, properly conducted, in Avater of 
suitable temperature, is not in the least injurious to decently 
hardy sheep — not any more so than an hour's rain any time 
within a month after shearing — the rain being of the same 
temperature w r ith brook water when fit for washing. But if 
it can be shown that shearing before about the 25th of June 
is better for the sheep, or gives the groAver a better chance 
to sell, there is a weighty and perfectly legitimate reason 



WASHING SHEEP CONSIDERED. 165 

against washing in many portions of the Northern States — 
for the streams are not warm enough usually for washing 
sheej) without injury until about the second week of June. 
This is true among the high lands of New York* and 
Northern Pennsylvania, and certainly ought to be still more 
so in Vermont, New Hampshire, etc., where the snows which 
feed the streams lie later on the mountains. 

Highly intelligent and candid flock-masters who have tried 
the experiment, (I have never myself done so,) assure me that 
Merino sheep sheared a month before the usual period — say 
from 20th of May to 1st of June — get sooner into condition 
if they are lacking in that particular ; that the wool obtains a 
better start before the opening of hot weather, and retains it 
through the year ; and that the sheep have better protection 
from inclemencies of weather during those periods when they 
most require it — that is, in the winter — and still more 
particularly during the cold storms of autumn. Whatever 
may be thought of the two first of these propositions — and 
they certainly are not unreasonable ones — the last is 
undeniably true ; and the additional autumn protection 
alone would be a sufficient reason for earlier shearing, in 
the absence of any special reason to the contrary. The 
apprehension of contagious diseases, too, from using the 
same washing yards, from temporarily occupying the same 
fields during the process, and even from driving sheep 
over the same roads, is, as I know from bitter experience, f 
perfectly well founded ; and it is often highly inconvenient, if 
not altogether impracticable, for the farmer to wash his sheep 
without using the same washing pens, or at least the same 
roads, with the public. 

And what sound objection can the buyer have to the 



* My residence is less than 1,200 feet above tide-water, surrounded by no lofty 
hills, and I know that here it is generally difficult to find the water as warm as it 
ought to be to wash sheep, before about the time specified in the text. 

t I have had four different visitations of hoof-rot in my flocks — all clearly and 
distinctly traceable to contagion. The third case occurred from some wethers 
affected by that disease, getting once among a flock of my breeding ewes. The 
wethers were found with the ewes at 9 o'clock, A. M., and were not with them at 
night-fall the preceding day. They might therefore have been with them a few hours, 
or only a few moments. In the fourth case, half a dozen of my lambs and sheep 
jumped into the road when a lame flock was passing, and remained with them half an 
hour. Both lots of animals were thus exposed when I was not aware there was a 
sheep having hoof-rot in the town ! The diseased sheep had just been brought in by 
drovers, and the farmer who took them to pasture, in the lot adjoining mine, in the 
third case, did not dream of their being thus affected ; and they had mixed with mine 
before I knew there was a new flock in the neighborhood. I mention these facts to 
show how readily sheep contract the disease, and how idle it would be for any man 
to lay aside all fears of contagion in going to and occupying a public washing pen — 
because he supposed he knew there were no diseased flocks in his neighborhood. 
There could be no better place for contracting hoof-rot or scab, than a washing-pen. 



16G WASHING SHEEP CONSIDERED. 

fanner's shearing Lis sheep a month earlier and unwashed, if 
he chooses to do so, even if we should admit, for the sake of 
argument, that all the reasons assigned for it have no 
real weight? If the farmer sends dirt to market, he, not the 
buyer, pays for the transportation. Washed or unwashed, 
the wool must go through the same cleansing process. Am I 
asked if the buyer has not the right to judge of the conditions 
in which he shall voluntarily purchase a commodity with his 
own money? By no sound principle, either of morals or 
commerce, have any class of buyers a right to establish rules 
of purchasing, not necessary to protect their own legitimate 
interests, which are calculated to injure the legitimate 
interests of producers. 

The rule that all wools shall be washed or subjected to a 
deduction of one-third to put them on a par with brook- 
washed wools, operates very unequally. A large, highly 
yolky ram, housed in the summer, will have at least two 
pounds, and a ewe one pound, more yolk in its fleece than 
would the same animal if unhoused in the summer. Should 
the unwashed wool then sell at the same rate of shrinkage in 
both cases? If we were to admit that one-third is a f.iir 
average rate of shrinkage on all unwashed wools, is there any 
justice in making the producer of the cleaner ones suffer for 
the benefit of the person who chooses to grow yolkier wools, 
or who houses his sheep in summer to preserve all their 
yolk? Does the manufacturer wish to pay a premium on the 
production and preservation of yolk in the wool ? 

No manufacturer claims that the present rule of shrinkage 
operates strictly equitably in all cases; but some manufacturers 
contend that a discrimination in unwashed wools would be 
impracticable, or at least inconvenient, and that if the present 
rule injures the interest of the producer, all he has to do is to 
wash his wool. It would be difficult for any one to show 
that there is any greater practical inconvenience in deciding 
between the different amounts of yolk in unwashed wool than 
there is in deciding between the different amounts of foul 
seed in wheat and other varieties of grain, of useless weeds 
in hay, or even of yolk in washed wool ; yet who thinks of 
buying these impure commodities at a fixed rate of shrinkage? 
Still less excuse is there for preserving an arbitrary and 
unequal rule, as a quasi punishment on growers who only 
believe themselves consulting their own legitimate interests, 
and who certainly are not invading those of others. 

The ground directly or impliedly assumed by some 



WASHING SHEEP CONSIDERED. 167 

growers, that a reduction of the present rate of shrinkage is 
all that is now called for — leaving it as fixed in its rate as 
at present — must be a pleasing oiie to those who grow and 
preserve the largest amount of yolk, for this would increase 
the present premium on yolk precisely in proportion to that 
reduction. But it would do it at the expense either of the 
producer of cleaner wools, or of the manufacturer. Equally 
fallacious and interested is the pretence that unwashed wools 
come nearer to a uniform standard in respect to cleanliness 
than washed ones, and therefore that, as a matter of right or 
mutual protection, all wool growers ought to combine 
to omit washing for the purpose of forcing all wools on the 
market in that situation. 

The only sound and equitable course is to abolish any fixed 
rule in the premises — to buy unwashed wool as wheat, other 
grain, hay, and washed wool containing impurities are now 
bought, viz., subject to a deduction proportioned to the 
amount of impurity in each particular case — clean wool 
being made the standard. It is as easy for the buyer and 
seller to agree on the amount of deduction as to agree on the 
quality. Indeed, they have no especial occasion to agree in 
terms on either ; nor do they now, in the case of washed wools 
of different qualities and degrees of cleanliness. They simply 
agree or disagree on price, each basing his estimates on such 
data as he jileases. The moment this mode of purchasing is 
adopted and put fairly into operation, its propriety will 
commend it to all. It will equally promote the legitimate 
interests of both buyer and seller. But one leading purchaser 
has to adopt it rapidly to procure its general adoption — 
because those who bought thus would secure the decided 
advantage of acting without competition in the rapidly 
increasing market of unwashed wools, while they still could 
compete on equal terms in the market of washed wools. 

Two sets of persons have taken what I esteem to be very 
uncalled for positions on this subject. Those who assume 
that manufacturers should, at the first intimation and without 
understanding the reasons, abandon any established custom 
of their calling, or submit to the imputation of laboring to 
take advantage of the wool producer, and of " combining " 
to secure that advantage, assume positions which are equally 
unsupported by proof and at war with good sense. The 
manufacturers have been at least as much sinned against 
as sinning. There is no more intelligent, honorable, public- 
spirited and liberal class of business men in our country. 



168 CUTTING THE HOOFS. 

The one-third rule of shrinkage was adopted by them at an 
early day, when but very little domestic wool came unwashed 
into the market. It was brought in usually by owners of small 
lots, who took no care of their sheep. The wool was not 
only frequently filled with wood-dirt, sand and dung, but it 
was also frequently out of condition — here a fleece cotted, 
there one jointed, and anon one filled with burs. It was not 
convenient to classify these with good washed wools, nor 
was it obligatory on anybody to encourage their continued 
production. Under such circumstances, the one-third rule of 
shrinkage met the case fairly enough. 

Very few persons are the first to discover that their 
customs have survived their original causes. Even sensible 
men surrender old ones with reluctance, and are quite apt to 
suspect the motives of proposed ■ innovators. Weak and 
prejudiced men mistake them for principles and support them 
with bigotry and fury. As soon as the manufacturers become 
convinced that the present feeling among flock-masters against 
the washing of wool springs from legitimate motives, and 
indicates a settled purpose instead of a mere freak, they will 
meet it, not by a suspension of purchases or by holding on to 
any unequal and unjust rules, but in a fair and business-like 
way. But if the grower errs in denouncing and " passing 
resolutions" against the manufacturer who does not at once 
accede to his precise terms, not less does the manufacturer 
err in assuming, in a matter where his own real interests are 
not at stake, to dictate modes and times of preparing a 
commodity for market to the producer of it ; and especially 
in assuming that the reasons offered by the latter for the 
change under consideration are either false or frivolous. 

I have in this connection spoken only of the manufacturers 
as buyers, though, directly, other classes of buyers are equally 
concerned in the question. But I have done this on the supposi- 
tion that as all avooIs go ultimately into the hands of the former 
to be prepared for consumption, their action in the premises 
would be the controlling one among all classes of purchasers. 

Cutting the Hoofs. — The hoofs of the improved English 
mutton breeds usually retain nearly their natural size and 
form. The hoofs of the Merino often continue growing to 
twice their natural length, and their horny crusts turn up in 
front and curl under at the sides. There is some difference 
between individuals in this particular, and considerable is 
made between flocks, by the nature of their summer pastures. 



CUTTING THE HOOFS. 169 

Moist, low grounds encourage the growth of the horn ; and 
it is also highly increased by the presence of hoof-rot. But 
all Merino flocks require examination, at least once a year, in 
this particular, or else a considerable portion of the sheep 
will have their hoofs grown out to an extent which is highly 
unsightly, which gives them a hobbling, " groggy " gait, and 
which, when the hoof turns under at the sides, confines 
between it and the sole a mass of mud or filth which remains 
there constantly. Occasionally, the hoof turns under so far 
that these impurities are also kept confined between the 
toes. This situation of things greatly increases the tendency 
to fouls, and aggravates hoof-rot where it exists. In England 
it would probably be thought to originate both. 

Where no disease is present, and the hoofs only require 
their usual annual shortening, the time of washing is often 
a very convenient one to attend to it. The hoofs are then 
freed from dirt and softened by soaking. When the sheep is 
removed from the washing-vat, the washer, or an attendant, 
holds it sitting on its rump with its back resting against his 
legs. He then, with a thin-bladed, strong, sharp knife, cuts 
away the horn underneath the foot so as to restore it to a 
level with the sole ; and some of the sole should be pared oif 
too, if it has become unnatm*ally thick. Care should be taken 
to preserve the natural bearing of the foot— not lowering the 
heel so much as to throw the weight on the toes, and not 
lowering the latter so much as to throw it on the heel. An 
experienced, firm, swift hand will perform this operation on 
each foot by one or two rapid strokes with the knife. The 
long toes are then to be cut off with a pair of nippers made 

for the purpose. As these 
are sometimes necessarily 
used when the hoofs are dry 
and tough, they should be 
toe-nippers. made very strong, with 

handles eighteen or twenty inches long, the rivet being half 
an inch in diameter and confined with a nut, so they can 
be taken apart for sharpening. The cutting edge should 
descend upon a strip of copper inserted in the iron to prevent 
dulling. With this instrument, the largest hoofs are readily 
severed. All these operations should be performed in a little 
more time than it takes to read this description of them — or 
else deferred until some other occasion, because, both on 
account of the washers and the sheep, the washing process 
is one which ought not to brook much delay. 




170 TIME BETWEEN WASHING AND SHEARING. 

Time between Washing and Shearing. — This should 
be determined by the weather. The fleece should become 
thoroughly dry, and be so far again lubricated with yolk as 
to have its natural silky feel and glossy appearance. The 
secretion of yolk depends much on temperature. More of it 
is secreted in one really hot day than in half a dozen dry, 
cool ones. .Consequently the time of shearing should be 
controlled by the condition of the wool, and not by the lapse 
of any established period of time. The old-fashioned wool 
growers usually sheared within ten days of washing, if the 
weather was dry, without much respect to temperature. 
Their successors, for reasons which have been repeatedly 
alluded to, generally aim to let enough time elapse for the 
fleece to become well nigh as yolky as it was before washing. 

Shearing. — This should always be performed on smooth, 
clean floors or platforms, with the sheep penned close at hand. 
If the weather is fair, it is best to drive only enough sheep 
into the pen at once to employ the shearers three hours — the 
rest remaining in the pasture to keep themselves filled with 
feed. A hungry, empty sheep is more impatient, and the 
shears run round its collapsed belly and sides with more 
difficulty. The bottom of the pen should be kept clean with 
straw, saw-dust, or corn-cobs.* If there are any sheep in the 
pen dirty from purging, they should be the first taken out. 
They should be carried a little aside from the shearing floor 
and the dungy locks cut away. When the catcher catches a 
sheep in the pen he should lift it in his arms clear of the floor, 
instead of dragging it to the door and thus filling its feet 
with straw, manure, <fcc. At the door of the pen, he should 
hold it up with its back resting against his own body and its 
feet projecting toward the shearer, who should be there with 
a proper shaped stick to clear its feet of loose filth, and with 
a short broom to free its belly from any adhering straws, 
chaff or saw-dust — before the sheep is carried to the place of 
shearing. 

It is difficult to give any practical directions for shearing 
which are of any use to the novice ; and experienced shearers 
do not need them. The art can only be properly acquired by 
experience and observation. A few suggestions, however, 
may not be entirely thrown away. The first care of the 

* These last, if spread on the bottom of the pen a few inches deep, answer the 
purpose admirably. They keep the feet clean and do not adhere to the wool if the 
sheep lie down. 



SHEARING. 171 

shearer should he to clip off the wool evenly and smoothly, 
without breaking the fleece and without cutting the wool 
twice in two, or cutting the skin. It is difficult to avoid the 
last, occasionally, on the corrugated surfaces of the Merino : 
but repeated and severe cuts should always procure the 
shearer's dismissal. Especial pains are to be taken in this 
particular about the udders of ewes. There is perhaps less 
danger if these are large and in sight. In the case of a 
young Merino ewe having no lamb, and whose udder is small 
and mostly covered with wool, I have repeatedly seen a teat 
clipped off — thus, rendering it forever after incapable of allow- 
ing the passage of milk, unless re-opened by the artificial process 
already described at page 157. The shearer who holds his 
sheep in the easiest manner for itself, who keeps it confined 
for the least period in one and especially an uncomfortable 
position, and who makes use of the least violence in case it 
attempts to escape, accomplishes more work, performs it 
bettei*, and incurs far less labor and fatigue. 

Wool should be cut off reasonably close, but not close 
enough to have the skin show naked and red — so as to 
expose it to sun-burn, or to have the sheep suffer severely 
from a moderate degree of cold. The English shepherds 
have a system of shearing their large sheep in uniform ridges 
or flutings, running in a particular way, which has a very 
pleasing appearance. I see no objections to it ; and every- 
thing which tends to raise any process toward the dignity of 
art, and increase the esprit du corps of any class of laborers, 
is beneficial both to themselves and their employers. 

Fair ordinary shearers will shear about twenty -five 
common Merinos in a day, and active ones from five to ten 
more. The highly corrugated sheep which are now becoming 
fashionable among a class, demand far more time. The 
comparatively open-fleeces, and smooth, round carcasses of the 
English breeds, admit of considerably more rapid shearing. 

While sheep are being sheared, the catcher should always 
be at hand with shovel and broom to remove dung, pick up 
scattered locks, and keep the floor perfectly clean. When a 
sheep is sheared, he should catch another for the shearer and 
set it on a new place on the floor, before taking up the fleece 
of its predecessor. This done, he should bring the preceding 
fleece together as it lies with its inner side up, and then, 
pressing it between his hands and arms, lift it up, carry it to 
the folding table and turn it over as he lays it down. He 



1*72 STUBBLE SHEARING AND TRIMMING. 

next should go back, pick up every "frib," and sweep the 
place so that it will be ready for another sheep.* 

Stubble Shearing and Trimming. — If wool is left half 
an inch long or more at shearing, it will, of course, (in the 
case of all varieties which do not annually shed their wool,) 
retain that extra length through the ensuing year. This is 
called "stubble shearing;" and is sometimes resorted to by 
the sellers of Merino sheep to deceive purchasers in relation 
to the actual length of the staple. The sellers are always 
ready to make or produce affidavits, if need be, of the time 
of shearing — but the mode of shearing is not stated in these 
interesting documents ! Indeed, thousands of unsuspecting 
buyers never think to ask that question. "Stubbling" is par- 
ticularly convenient to convert an unimproved Merino into 
an improved one in appearance, by doubling the length of 
wool about the head, legs, belly, etc., Avhere the former is 
most deficient. 

" Trimming " is a little higher branch of the same art. It 
is " cutting a sheep into form," by shortening the wool where 
there is over-fullness, and leaving it longer where there is a 
lack of fullness, so that the sheep takes many of its leading 
points — such as fullness in the crops, straightness of back, 
etc. — quite as much from the shears as from nature. This is 
practiced by exhibitors for prizes in the show yards of the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England ! f 

" Trimming " has entirely the advantage on the score of 
respectability of association, for " stubbling " in this country 
is not practiced by any but the acknowledged Bedouins " of 
the profession!" Both are disreputable frauds. 

Shearing Lambs and Shearing Sheep Semi-Annually. 
— When lambs are yeaned, as Mr. Chamberlain's Silesians 
are, in the early part of winter, and fed up to a large size 
before shearing, there is no impropriety in shearing them in 
the spring with their dams ; but there can be no good reason 
for shearing spring lambs when two or three months old. 



* I once knew a powerful Englishman who would thus tend twelve good shearers, 
do up the wool beautifully, (this was when the fleeces were done up entirely by hand,) 
and bring oat the sheep so fast that the shearers were constantly hurried by him ! 
.Most who both catch and do up the wool do not tend more than half a dozen Shearers, 
and want a boy to pick up the fribs. 

t So says the Editor of the Mark-Lane Express (by implication,) in his paper of 
January 19th, 1868. and he there entirely dissents from the opinion of a correspondent 
who asserts that the animals which take the prizes are those which are "wast cut 
into form." 



DOING UP WOOL. 



173 



Sheep are sheared twice a year in portions ot the Southern 
States. This may be a sort of necessity to save the wool, 
where they are suffered to run at large in forests or on lands 
infested by brambles. But where sheep are treated like domes- 
ticated animals, and kept on cleared and inclosed pastures, 
neither necessity nor utility can be pleaded for the practice. 

Doing Up "Wool. — The fleece having been desposited on 
the folding table, with its inside ends downward, the wool-tyer 




FOLDING TABLE. 

first spreads it out to its full extent, restoring every part to 

its natural relative position. Dung and other impurities 

being removed, the fleece is pressed together in the same 

position as closely as practicable. One of the sides (1 in 

above cut,) is then folded directly over or inverted toward 

the middle of the 

fleece so that it covers 

5. The opposite side 

(2) is then folded over 

and inward in the 

same way, covering 6, 

and leaving the fleece 

in a long strip, some 

twenty inches wide. 

The neck (3) is next 

folded toward the 

breech; andthebreech 

(4) toward the neck. 

The fleece is now 

, , A . . ., , FLEECE EEADT TOR PRESS. 

brought into the ob- 
long square represented by 5 and 6. Having placed the clean 




174 



DOIXG UP "WOOL. 




FLEECE IN TRESS. 



fribs belonging to the fleece in a bunch on top, and having 
folded 5 over on 6, so that it "will take the form presented 
in the preceding cut, it is ready for the wool press. The 
wool-tyer then takes it carefully 
between his hands and anus, so as 
not to disturb its arrangement, and 
places it unbroken in the wool 
press, either on one side, as in the 
left hand cut annexed, or on what 
may be termed its edge, as in right 
hand cut annexed. 
The wool press I consider one of the most convenient 
minor agricultural inventions of the day. Combining some 
previous plans with my own, I furnished a plan of it substan- 
tially as it iioav is, except that it was worked by a lever 
instead of the crank arrangement described below, to Mr. 
James Geddes, of Fairmount, New York. Mr. Geddes 
perfected it by adding that arrangement. I am indebted to 
him for the following cut and description : 

"The Press consists of a substantial and firmly made box, sup- 
ported on legs of convenient, height ; the length of the box, four feet, 
and its width eleven inches, and its depth ten and one -half inches, 
both measured inside of the box.* One end or head of this box (a) 
is fixed, and strongly 

braced by a sort of iron b a. 

bracket made for the 
purpose; the other or 
movable head (b,) has a 
horizontal support to 
which it is also firmly 
braced, and slides under 
the cleet nailed at / up 
to within any requisite 
distance of the other 
head, a. Through both 
the heads there are three 
perpendicular slits 
which render so many 
braces essential to their 
strength, and through 
which the strings are 
extended for the tying 
of the fleece. In oper- 
ation, these strings having been put in place, the fleece is folded to go 
into the box, but not rolled ; the crank, turned by hand and prevented 
by a ratchet from springing back, moves the roller at d, which, by 
means of the strap, two inches wide, shown at c, pulls up the follower 




WOOL TRESS. 



* Large fleeces require a rather larger box. 



FRAUDS IN DOING UP WOOL. 175 

b — the strings are tied; the catch lifted and crank reversed, when the 
straps, one inch wide each, at g, draw back the follower, and the 
fleece is released in perfect shape." 

There are several other forms of wool presses, hut they 
possess so little proportionable value that I do not regard 
them, as worth describing.* 

The fleece comes from the press in a nearly square mass, 
and if it is properly folded, and placed in the machine with 
respectable skill, not a black or outside end of a single lock is 
visible ; and none but the best parts of the fleece are visible. 
This is expected by the buyer, and therefore has no odor of 
deception about it. 

The twine used in tying should be of flax or hemp. If 
of cotton, particles of it are liable to be mixed with the wool 
and to become incorporated with the cloth. They receive 
different colors from wool in the process of dyeing, and might 
thus spot the surfaces of dark, fine cloths. Wool twine should 
be large enough not to render the continuous tying of it too 
painful to the fingers, but if over lai'ge, it looks unwork- 
manlike and also as if the seller was anxious to sell twine for 
wool. The three bands of twine placed on each fleece in the 
press is sufficient, unless it comes loose at the edges and 
requires an extra band placed round it, the other way, after 
being taken from the press. 

Fkauds in Doing Up Wool. — Some farmers have the 
habit, if they have a few sheep die in winter, of putting the 
wool pulled from them into the sheared wool, distributing a 
a handful or two into each fleece. If the pulled wool is 
unwashed and the fleeces are sold as washed, the practice is 
a serious fraud. If the pulled wool is washed, or is in the 
same condition in this respect with the fleece wool, then it is 
a petty fraud — for pulled wool is not as well adapted to some 



* The only possible exception, I think, is the original of this press, worked by a 
lever. It is not so good an implement as the above, but is much more conveniently 
made with the rough tools usually found on a farm. One end of the lever passes 
through a hole in the middle of the cross-piece or brace, which is nailed on the left 
hand legs of the machine, near their bottom, as seen in the cut. The strap (c,) which 
is attached in above cut to the movable head (6,) is fastened to the lever under the 
front end of box (d.) The lever is a couple of feet longer than the box, so that a man 
can, if necessary, stand on the elevated end to press it clown. That end is raised 
about half-way from the floor to the box, when the movable head (b) is slid back to /. 
Consequently when forced down by the foot, it draws forward the sliding head toward 
the stationary one, in the same manner as the crank does above. A strip of notched 
iron attached perpendicularly to the inside of one of the fore-legs with a piece of iron 
on the lever to catch into the notches, holds down the lever to any point to which it is 
pressed. The lever-press requires to be fastened to the floor by a hook and staple at 
the rear end, to prevent it tipping up when the weight of a man is put on the lever at 
the other end. 



176 STORING WOOL. 

purposes as sheared wool, and "dead wool" is apt to be 
inferior in various particulars.* Putting unwashed tags into 
washed fleeces is also fraudulent. If as well washed as the 
wool, it is not fraudulent, for they are parts of the same 
fleeces.f Breech wool simply discolored by dung may enter 
the fleece, but all respectable flock-masters should take good 
care that no lumps or masses of dung are accidentally rolled 
up in it. Locks wet with urine should be dried in the sun 
before being done up in the fleece. It is not a fraud to put 
the hairy shank wool in the fleece, but it is unworkmanlike. 
It is fraudulent to sell fleeces burred to any extent, unless 
the buyer is distinctly put on his guard. All such fleeces, 
however much or little burred, should be put by themselves, 
and the buyer invited to open them.J 

Storing Wool. — Wool should be stored in a clean, dry 
room, into which neither dust, vermin nor insects can obtain 
entrance. Both of the latter are very fond of building nests 
in it.§ A north light is the best one to show wool in. If 
there is room for it, the fleeces should be piled up neatly 
and regularly in walls, with alleys between, so that a large 
proportion of them can be seen by the purchaser without 
disturbing their arrangement. Fleeces of the same lot or 
flock should be piled promiscuously, or divided into lots 
according to quality. If the want of room or other circum- 
stances require the wool to be piled in a large, compact 
mass, it is not only for the character but even often for the 
immediate interests of the seller to place a full proportion of 
the inferior fleeces in sight. Few persons buy without 
opening the pile somewhat, and he who opens it and finds 
that it has been "faced" with the best fleeces, is apt to 
overestimate the inferiority of that which remains unseen. 

It is a common but erroneous idea, that wool continues to 
gain in weight for long periods after being stored. It does 
so for a short time : at any rate it has where I have seen the 
fact tested; but every wool merchant knows that in the 
course of a year it loses several per cent, by the evaporation 
of yolk and moisture. 



* When the sheep die of diseases it is apt to be uneven, jointed, weak, harsh 
and nnelastic. 

t And the buyer is a gainer by their being washed separately, because, being 
Bevered from the sheep, they receive no yolk after washing. 

t However badly wool is burred, not one is usually visible on the outside of fleece 
when it is well done up in a press. 

§ Especially rats, mice and bumble-bees. 



PLACE FOR SELLING WOOL WOOL DEPOTS. 177 

Place for Selling "Wool. — My own experience and 
observation for more than thirty years, in regard to selling 
wool, has satisfied me that, on the whole, the best, and, to the 
farmer, by far the most satisfactory place for disposing of his 
clip, is at home in his own wool room. It shows better there 
than in the sack ; and the bargain a man makes for himself, he 
is bound to rest contented with. The local competition, too, 
in places frequented by buyers, I think usually runs up prices 
to quite as high a point as the general market authorizes at 
the time of sale — not unfrequently quite as high as would be 
received directly from the manufacturer, after deducting 
freight and the other incidental charges which cluster round 
such transactions. 

"Wool Depots and Commission Stores. — The wool 
depot system, as it was called, was introduced by H. 
Blanchard, at Kinderhook, New York, in 1844. It was 
conducted on the same general principles with the ordinary 
commission establishments, but varied in its method of 
transacting business. Each lot of wool was graded and 
stapled and the owner credited with the amount ; but his 
wool was no longer kept separate. The chai'ges were for 
receiving, sorting and selling, one cent a pound ; cartage, 
three cents a bale ; and insurance, usually thirty cents on $100 
for three months. The anticipated advantages of the system 
were that each owner would get the highest market value for 
his wool, and that the manufacturer could afford to pay a 
better price when he could buy the kind he wanted unmixed 
with others. T. C. Peters opened such an establishment at 
Buffalo, New York, in 1847, Perkins & Brown one at 
Springfield, Massachusetts ; and I think others were com- 
menced. It was anticipated for a time that they would 
receive and sell most of the wool of the country, but, though 
conducted with acknowledged skill and probity, the system 
failed utterly. Americans generally prefer to do their own 
bargaining. Wool commission stores, however, still flourish 
in the important centers of commerce. For a class of 
sellers — those like the prairie wool growers, for example, 
who have large lots and no suitable place of storage, or those 
Avho are remote from regular markets and wish to realize at 
stated periods — they are indispensable. 

Sacking Wool. — When wool is sold at the barn, the 
place of delivery is the subject of stipulation. The sacking, 
s* 



< 



178 SACKING WOOL. 

unless otherwise agreed, must be done by the purchaser. It 
is sacked in bales nine feet long, formed of two breadths of 
"burlaps" from 35 to 40 inches wide. The mouth of the 
sack is sowed with twine round a strongly iron-riveted hoop, 
and the body of it is let down through a circular aperture 
usually in the floor of the loft or room where the wool is 
stored, if it is in an upper story. If sacked on the farm, and 
the wool room is not in an upper story, a temporary platform 
is sometimes erected for that purpose, and the wool tossed up 
to a catcher. The hoop rests on the edges of the floor around 
the hole, and the suspended sack should swing clear of 
everything beneath. A man enters it, and another standing 
at the mouth passes down the fleeces to him. He arranges 
them as closely as possible in successive layers and tramples 
them down with his feet until they are as compact as they 
can be made. When the bale is filled, the top of it is sowed 
up with twine, and it is marked as the buyer wishes. It 
renders the bales more convenient for lifting, if handles are 
formed by tying up a little wool in their lower corners. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SUMMER MANAGEMENT — CONTINUED. 

DRAFTING AND SELECTION REGISTRATION MARKING AND 

NUMBERING STORMS AFTER SHEARING SUN - SCALD 

TICKS — SHORTENING HORNS MAGGOTS — CONFINING RAMS 

TRAINING RAMS FENCES SALT TAR, SULPHUR, 

ALUM, &C. — WATER IN PASTURES — SHADE IN PASTURES 
HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMER PAMPERING. 

Drafting and Selection. — To secure constant improve- 
ment in a stock of sheep, as well as to remove all animals 
from it which have individual peculiarities which render 
them comparatively unprofitable, or troublesome, it is 
necessary annually to "draft" the flock, as it is termed, that 
is, exclude from it all animals which fall below a certain 
standard of excellence. The leading defects to be had in 
view in drafting are, first, the general ones of a want of the 
requisite degree of perfection in the form and fleece, judged 
by the existing standard of the flock. What satisfies the 
owner, in these respects, in one generation of sheep, ought 
not to in the next. However perfect the flock, there ought 
to be some degree of improvement visible in the get of every 
new stock ram, or that ram ought at once to give place to 
another. And as each year brings more perfect younger 
animals into breeding, the most defective old ones should be 
excluded, or drafted, to make place for them. If, however, 
the get of a new stock ram do not meet expectation — or if 
it is found that they bring some new prominent fault into the 
flock, or, what is still worse, restore an old one partly bred 
out and toward which a predisposition yet lingers in the 
flock — or if they present a type not uniform with the 
established type of the flock, even though, in itself, it may 
be an equally good one — it would be better to draft this 
entire get of lambs, and allow the year of their birth to be a 
stationary one in the progress of the flock. 



180 DRAFTING — REGISTRATION. 

The principal Bjpecial and, in prime flocks, exceptional 
defects which call for drafting, are weakness of constitution, 
predispositions to particular diseases, poor qualities either as 
breeders or mothers, difficulties of any kind connected with 
lambing, tendencies to barrenness, or any important vices, 
such as wool-biting, jumping, untamable wildness, &c. Ewes 
which have attained an advanced age are usually excluded 
unless they are peculiar favorites. If crones are retained on 
account of their marked value as breeders, they ought, both 
on the score of utility and appearance, to be separated from 
the rest of the flock and fed and nursed by themselves. 

The selection of the young stock to take the place of the 
drafted sheep, should not depend on one examination, 
however deliberate and careful. It is one of the most 
important operations of the sheep farm, and can only be 
properly performed by noting the characteristics of every 
animal in the young flock, from the time it is yeaned until 
that for selection arrives. 

The best time for drafting is at shearing. There is no 
other one period during the entire year when all the charac- 
teristics of each individual are either so apparent to the eye, 
or so fresh in the recollection, as then. No person ever 
attains so perfect a knowledge of the fleece in any othei way 
as by seeing it roll from the carcass under the shears, spread 
out on the folding table, handled into and out of the wool- 
press, and put to the last and crowning test of being 
separtely weighed. The least defect of form, too, is then 
laid most naked. And, finally, in the case of sheep not 
permanently numbered, if the drafting and selection are not 
then made, the removal of the fleece usually destroys all 
means of distinctly identifying the animal, and consequently 
of recalling its past history, unless in the case of a few very 
superior or otherwise peculiar animals. 

Registration. — Some owners of small and very carefully 
managed flocks remember, or imagine they remember, the 
history of every sheep in them ; but this is obviously 
impracticable in regard to flocks of any considerable size. A 
history of each individual sheep is by no means necessary in 
a flock kept mainly for wool-growing or mutton purposes, or 
in order to effect a good and even a rapid degree of general 
improvement in any flock ; but it is indispensable to the 
breeder to enable him to make the greatest individual as 
well as general improvement — to preserve his pedigrees 



REGISTRATION. 



181 



correctly — and to sell sheep with a full understanding of 
their particular qualities at periods of the year when those 
qualities cannot be determined solely by the eye. The 
careful breeder should invariably be on the shearing floor 
with his Register in his hand, minutely scrutinizing each 
sheep as its fleece is taken off, and noting down his observa- 
tions on the spot. It is most convenient to have a prescribed 
form of record in which each particular can be stated by a 
figure ; and it will, of course, include those particulars which 
each person is most desirous of preserving. I have always 
had my own include such facts as would give me a full 
general idea of the sheep without going beyond the record. 
I have changed the form several times, but that used for the 
last three or four years has been a blank book with each page 
ruled into columns, and headed as follows : 



'— ' 

s 

S 
p 


OJ 
60 


a5 

N 


a 

3 
ft 


o 

A 

C3 

a 

03 


9 

ho 

.9 
■S 

o> 
u 

M 


o 
o 

OJ 

o 

« 
o 

'3 

* 


"o 
o 

o 
>> 

"3 

3 
& 


"3. 

C3 

o 

to 

a 

SI 
Hi 


o 

V 

« 

o 
w 

» 

a 
M 

'3 

Eh 


EC 

OJ 

c 

3 

"o 


'3 

JO 

o 
W) 

H 

> 
o 
o 


•a 

0> 

o 

bO 

a 
"E 

Q 

t» 
o 
O 


.9 

a 


a 
o 
•-0 

3 
S 

o 

a 


Remarks. 


i 

*2 


4 
5 


1 

5 


3 
1 



4 


1 

3 


5 


3 
1 


1 

3 


2 
3 


3 

2 


1 

4 


4 
1 


1 
5 


1 

4 





Except in the columns for number, age, and weight of 
fleece, the figures imply relative degree or quality : and 1 is 
assumed as the maximum and 5 as the minimum of that 
degree or quality. Thus the first of the above records being 
translated reads thus : No. 1 is four years old, very large, of 
middling form, has no lamb, has hitherto exhibited first rate 
breeding qualities, yields 8^ lbs. of wool, the wool is of middling 
quality, and of the longest staple, its thickness is better than 
middling but not- first rate, yolkiness medium, covering on 
belly excellent, the head badly covered, wrinkled in the 



182 PERMANENT MARKS ON SHEEP. 

highest degree, constitution excellent. The second would 
read thus: No. 2 is 5 years old, is of the smallest size, of the 
lies! form, has an inferior lamh, her breeding qualities are 
only middling, weight of fleece 5 lbs., quality of wool prime, 
length of staple middling, thickness of fleece middling, fleece 
of more than medium yolkiness, covering of belly below 
middling, covering of head first rate, no wrinkles, constitution 
quite defective. The star at the left of No. 2, signifies that 
she is to be drafted from the flock. If I had a ram exceed- 
ingly strong in the points where No. 1 was most defective 
viz., in form, quality of wool and covering of head, I should 
be likely to write his name opposite in the column of 
"Remarks," to signify the propriety of coupling them the 
ensuing fall. If any sheep had any special defect not 
included in the record, I would place that fact in the same 
column. * 

The above system of registration may appear to many 
persons to be attended with a good deal of labor and trouble. 
I know by abundant experience that there is not the slightest 
difficulty in recording these memoranda with the utmost care 
and accuracy, and at the same time keeping up with five or 
six shearers. To prevent any confusion, where there is alone 
a chance for it, namely, in crediting fleeces to the wrong 
sheep, I throw down a card by each sheep which is being 
sheared, marked with its number as entered in the Register, 
in connection with its other qualities. The card is taken up 
with the fleece, and kept with it until the latter is done up 
and weighed. Habit soon renders the eye prompt to decide, 
and at least as accurate here as under any other circum- 
stances. I had as lief sell sheep, or select them for coupling, 
by my Register, as to give them a new examination at the 
time ; and I certainly could do so far more understandingly 
than by examination without the Register at any period 
within five or six months after shearing. 

Marking and Numbering. — Sheep should be marked 
immediately after shearing with the mark of ownership — 
usually two of the owner's initials stamped on the side by an 
iron brand dipped in paint. Whether they need additional 
marks, so that each can at any time be distinguished from all 
the rest of the flock, depends upon the owner's modes of 

* It is understood, of course, that the above are mercjy imaginary cases to illus- 
trate the mode of keeping a record. Such a sheep as No. 2, would hardly be found in 
<uiy good breeding flock. 



PERMANENT MARKS ON SHEEP. 183 

treatment, breeding, &c. In "Sheep Husbandry in the 
South," I recommended Yon Thaer's elaborate system of 
permanently numbering lambs, by notches on the ear. By 
this, one notch over the left ear signifies 1 ; two notches over 
the same, 2 ; one notch under the same, 3 ; three notches 
under the left ear, 9; one notch over the right ear, 10; two 
over same, 20 ; a notch under the right ear, 30 ; three notches 
under right ear, 90; a notch in end of left ear, 100; in the 
end of right ear, 200 ; these added together, 300 ; the point of 
the left ear cut square off, 400 ; the point of the right ear cut 
square off, 500; the latter and the notch for 100 added, 600, 
and so on. 

Von Thaer indicated the age by round holes in the ears. 
As there could not be a mistake of ten years in the age of a 
sheep, the holes are the same for every succeeding ten years. 
The absence of any hole indicates the beginning of each 
decade of yeai*s, as 1840, 1850, or 1860; one hole in left 
ear, 1861; two holes in left, 1862; one hole in right, 1863; 
one hole in right, and one in left, 1864 ; one hole in right and 
two in left, 1865 ; two in right, 1866 ; two in the right, and 
one in left, 1867 ; two in each, 1868 ; three in the right, 1869 ; 
none in either, 1870.* 

I have again given this system of numbering because it 
has proved a highly satisfactory one to some pains-taking 
men ; but I confess I long since got tired of and abandoned 
it. It requires considerable trouble ; and if the holes and 
notches are not made large enough to mutilate the ear, they 
are liable to heal up or become obscure ; and they therefore 
require watching while healing. Even when made as small 
as will answer, they still, in high numbers, cause a dis- 
agreeable mutilation. 

There is another German system by which the different 
numerals are made by rows of sharp, steel points inserted in 
metallic types, as in the two upper figures on following 
page ; and these types have dovetails which can be slid into 
corresponding grooves {a a a a in cut on next page) in the 
lower jaw of a pair of nippers constructed for the purpose, 
and thus will be made ready for use. 

The inside of the ear is smeared with a thick paint made 
of vermillion, indigo, or gunpowder and whiskey. By means 
of the nippers, the steel points giving the proper numbers, are 



* The proper instrument to use is a spring punch like those used by railroad 
conductors — cutting a hole a little less than one-fourth of an inch in diameter. James 
Martin, 20 Beaver Street, Albany, manufactures beautiful ones of any size, to order. 



184 



PERMANENT MARKS ON SHEEP. 



forced into the skin inside the ear as far as is practicable 
without causing bleeding, and when they are withdrawn the 

paint is rubbed into the punctures. Mr. Fleichrnann — t 





MARKING IMPLEMENTS. 

whose Report on German Sheep* I am indebted for the 
illustrations of this process — declares, as the result of his 
own observation and experience, that it succeeds fully, Mid 
that the numbers remain visible " in old sheep which have 
been marked for several years." 

I have seen imported sheep which had been perfectly 
tattooed in this way ; 
and it constitutes a 
very beautiful mode 
of marking for those 
who have time and 
taste for manipula- 
tions demanding so much care. They must be performed 
with great exactness to be successful. Mr. George Campbell, 
of West Westminster, Vt., writes me that "he likes the 
system very much when the figures can be made plain ; that 
he has been using gunpowder, but does not get all the figures 
legible ; that he is now experimenting with India ink." 

A third mode of permanent marking is performed by 
punching a hole an eighth of an inch in diameter through the 
ear and inserting a lead rivet of the size and form of the 
ordinary No. 8 copper belt rivet, sold in hardware shops. 
Like the belt rivet, it has a bur on which the opposite end 



INSIDE EAI» MARKS. 



* In United States Patent Office Report for 1847. 




PERMANENT MARKS ON SHEEP. 185 

of the rivet is headed down, on the inner side of the ear. 
The head is about half an inch in diameter, and on this is 
stamped the number of the sheep. I have never tested it; 
but learn that it has given satisfaction to those who have 
done so. The copper belt rivet itself might be used. 

A fourth mode of permanent marking was introduced to 
some extent among the breeders of New York in 1862. To 
a ring three-fourths of an inch in circumference, 
and formed of smallish No. 14 brass wire, was 
suspended a plate of copper of the form exhibited 
in the annexed cut, on which were stamped the 
initials of the owner's name, and the number of 
the sheep. The ring was inserted about the 
middle of the ear, so that the plate would remain 
visible outside the wool. It was found, however, 
that the ring sometimes cut down through the 
ear, and sometimes that it was itself cut through 
by the plate. The cutting of the ear might 
doubtless be prevented by making the holes ""^ EAEMAEK - 
with a punch, and allowing them to heal fully before 
inserting the rings,* and, if necessary, reducing the weight 
of the plate by making it no larger than in the cut, or even 
no larger than a five or three cent piece, and as thin as the 
last named coin. This reduction of weight would probably 
also prevent the ring from being cut through. Or a split steel 
ring, or a small T might take the place of the brass ring, f 
This is so neat and convenient a mode of permanent marking, 
that it ought to be brought to perfection. 

If not permanently numbered, every large flock of any 
considerable value, from which sales of breeding sheep are to 
be made, or which is to be bred with particular reference to 
individual chai-acteristics, should be annually numbered — for 
without this there can be no registration. It is performed by 
stamping figures about 2^ inches long, on the side or rump, 
with i^aint, by means of iron or wooden brands. The latter 
are cut like a type on the end of blocks of soft wood. It is 
convenient to have a box of brands (arranged and kept in 
their order,) with special marks for wethers, cull or draft 



* Brass is corrosive to a new wound, and by keeping the edges of the hole raw, 
works down through the ear morft readily. 

+ The ring turning freely in a hole on sound healed np flesh, would be less likely 
to cut through. The split ring is inserted with considerable difficulty. The T, half an 
inch long, inserted through a hole already healed and lying across the upper side of 
the ear could not cut through. But if the plate is lightened, as suggested, (its upper 
edge might also be thickened and ronnded,) I have httle doubt the present brass ring 
would suffice. 



180 STORMS AFTER SHEARING. 

sheep, those of particular crosses, etc., etc. It is a great 
convenience to have even permanently numbered sheep also 
receive this annual numbering on the body, so that they 
can be readily distinguished in the field, without catching, 
and at some distance. All marks should be put on near the 
spine to prevent rubbing before the paint is dry. 

Storms after Shearing. — It is remarkable how readily 
oven hardy sheep perish if exposed to very cold storms soon 
after shearing. A cold rain-storm accompanied with a north- 
west wind, occurred in Central New York in 1860, during the 
height of shearing, a little after the middle of June. It came 
on a day which had opened pleasantly, and many farmers 
having made their preparations and having their sheep under 
cover, shut their doors and kept on shearing. Some, with 
singular thoughtlessness, turned the new-shorn sheep out as 
usual. Probably three hundred perished within a circle of a 
few miles. In one case within my knowledge, a wool buyer 
approaching a barn found a number of dead and dying sheep 
lying about. On entering the closed barn he found the farmer 
and his assistants shearing away in high glee and turning 
out new victims. They had not even thought to look out ! 

When death is not directly produced by such exposure, 
the sheep are apt to contract obstinate catarrhs, and exhibit 
other symptoms of unthriftiness for a considerable period 
afterwards — a very bad way of commencing the summer, 
particularly for ewes having lambs. Sheep should be housed 
on cold nights and during cold storms for a few days after 
shearing ; and in default of conveniences for this, they should 
be driven into dense forests and to situations most sheltered 
from cold winds. 

Very early shearing should be considered out of the 
question in climates like those of the Northern States, without 
a sufficient supply of barns and sheds to shelter every sheep 
on the farm in case of necessity. But, in truth, the early 
shorn sheep do not appear to sutler as much, in proportion, 
from cold. The change to them is not so great or sudden as 
when cold storms follow shearing after they have been 
sweltering in their fleeces in hot weather. New-shorn sheep 
rapidly become inured to much colder weather than they 
could endure at first, and this long before their wool has 
grown enough to offer them any additional protection. 

Sun - Scald. — This is very rare now, but was not so when 
Saxon sheep abounded in the country. It was the fashion to 



DESTROYING TICKS. 



187 



shear them very close, and their skins were so thin and 
delicate, that they not unfrequently blistered, and became 
sore under the scorching sun. Some greased these sores — 
others gave the sheep shade and paid no further attention 
to them. 

Ticks. — A very ticky flock of lambs can not be kept in 
good order, and when they become poor and weak, toward 
spring, these destructive parasites rapidly reduce them lower 
and render it extremely difficult to save their lives. Ticks are 
found on all sheep in neglected flocks, but the heat and cold, 
and the rubbing and biting to which they are exposed on new 
shorn sheep, drive them to take shelter in the long wool of 
the lambs. Here they are so readily exterminated, that it is 
as much of a disgrace as a loss to the flock-master to suffer 
them to remain in a breeding flock. About a fortnight after 
shearing, every lamb should be dipped in a decoction of 




DIPPING BOX. 



tobacco strong enough to kill the ticks. The last point can be 
readily settled by an experiment on a few of these insects. * 
The decoction is poured into a narrow, deep box, which has an 
inclined shelf on one side, covered with a grate, as shown in 
the cut. One man holds the lamb by the fore-legs with one 



* The rule used to be to boil 5 lbs. of plug tobacco (after chopping it fine) or 10 
lbs. of stems for a hundred late Saxon lambs. The larger, earlier and longer fleeced 
lambs of the present day require more — say 6 l A lbs. or 7 lbs. The decoction is used 
cold or blood-warm. Care must be taken not to dilute it so that it will foil to kill 
both the tick and its eggs. 



188 DESTROYING TICKS. 

hand, and with the other clasps the nose so as to prevent any 
of the fluid from entering the nostrils or mouth; another 
holds the lamb by the hind -legs, and they then entirely 
immerse it in the fluid. It is immediately taken out, placed 
on the grate, and every part of its wool carefully squeezed. 
The grated shelf conducts the liquor back into the box. In 
default of a dipping box, two tubs may be used. After 
dipping the lamb in one it is set on its feet in the empty one, 
its wool squeezed out, and the liquor returned to the dipping 
tub as often as is necessary. 

Mr. Thorne informs me that he mixes whale oil with the 
tobacco water, until the latter is considerably thickened by it ; 
and he thinks this renders the wash beneficial to the fleece. 

A solution of arsenic has long been used for the same 
purpose in Great Britain, and at the present time it is vastly 
more economical than tobacco. Three pounds of white 
arsenic, in powder, are dissolved in six gallons of boiling 
water, and forty gallons of cold water are added. The whole 
is well stirred with a stick, and the lamb is then immersed pre- 
cisely in the same way as in the tobacco water. The remaining 
liquor, containing this deadly poison, should be poured where 
no animal can get to it ; and the dipping box, after being well 
rinsed, should be put in a safe place and used for no other 
purpose. Arsenic is not poisonous to the hands, if they are 
sound ; and even if the skin should be a little broken, a couple 
of hours exposure to the above described solution would be 
attended with no danger. If large surfaces of the hands 
were denuded of skin, an injurious absorption of the arsenic 
might take place. The old sheep are frequently dipped at 
the same time with lambs, in arsenic water, in England. 

If the lambs of a breeding flock are properly dipped, but 
very few ticks will be found either on the old sheep or lambs 
at the next shearing. If killed in the same way on the 
succeeding years' lambs, they will generally be wholly 
exterminated from the flock; and if no ticky sheep are 
subsequently introduced into it, and it is kept in good order, 
two or three or more years may elapse before another tick 
Avill be found in it. 

When lambs have been suffered to go until winter without 
dipping, and are covered with ticks, arsenic boiled in water, 
an ounce to a gallon, is poured on them ; but the Mountain 
Shepherd's Manual, which recommends this, adds : — " In this 
method, however, several of the ticks escape by crawling to 
the extremities of the filaments." The common mercurial 



SHORTENING HORNS — MAGGOTS. 189 

ointment of the shops, mixed with seven parts of lard, is an 
effectual remedy. It is rubbed on the skin in furrows made 
by opening the wool, and should be most freely applied to 
the parts which are especially frequented by the insects, viz., 
the neck and brisket. Half an ounce of it may thus be used 
with entire safety on a common sized Merino lamb, having 
the ordinary access to shelter, in any but exceedingly 
tempestuous or changeable weather ; and this would be more 
than sufficient for the purpose. In England, where mercurial 
ointment is frequently used, it is believed to have a generally 
salutary effect on the skin and on the growth of the wool. 
Indeed, it is often applied for this express purpose, about the 
first of October, to lambs which were dipped at shearing, and 
which, therefore, have no vermin on them. It is also applied 
to grown sheep for the same purposes, at the close of the 
coupling season — 2 lbs. to twenty head — or If oz. per head. 
An ounce would be sufficient on a grown Merino. 

Shortening Horns, Etc. — Every horn in the flock should 
be examined at marking time. When those of the ram press 
\ipon the side of the head or neck, a longitudinal section 
should be sawed from the inside of each, so as to relieve the 
parts of their contact — and the edges should be rasped 
smooth. Ewes' horns sometimes grow into the eyes or sides 
of the face. They should be sawed off, and it will save the 
trouble of repeating the operation often if they be taken off 
near the head. By far the best saw I have ever used for 
these different purposes is a butcher's bow saw. 

Maggots. — New-shorn rams do not recognize each other 
at once after shearing ; and those often fight which have pre- 
viously run kindly together. If the skin of the head becomes 
broken, and especially if blood oozes from the wound to a part 
where a horn presses on the flesh, or where the shearer has 
left a mass of wool between the flesh and horn, maggots are 
promptly generated, and they soon burrow in the flesh and 
produce death under the most distressing form. Where they 
have entered the flesh deeply it is difficult to exterminate them 
by one application of the proper substances — and they should 
be carefully re-examined at intervals of a day or two, 
according to appearances. Spirit of turpentine will kill the 
maggots it comes in contact with, and prevent the fly from 
again attacking the parts until its effects are dissipated. It is 
common also to daub tar over the wound. Having always 



190 CONFINING RAMS. 

found these applications sufficient, I have not experimented 
with others. Spirit of tar is said to be more effective than 
turpentine. A flock-master who is an excellent practical 
shepherd writes me that he has found that "two ounces of 
corrosive sublimate in a quart of any spirits that will dissolve 
it " is a sure remedy in such cases ; and that the flies will not 
return to a wound to which it has been applied.* 

Prevention here, as in most other cases, is much the best 
remedy. There is no excuse for leaving a horn pressing on 
the head, or wool under the horns. Rams should be smeared 
back of and between the horns immediately after shearing, 
with tar and turpentine, or with fish oil, to repel the flies in 
case the skin becomes broken. A ram attacked by maggots 
Avill soon show it by his rapid emaciation and by his agonized 
movements, but the mischief has then proceeded to a serious 
extent. When rams fight, or when it is necessary to keep 
them in considerable flocks together, they should be frequently 
examined : and it would be labor well spent to renew the 
smearing of fish oil on their heads once a fortnight through 
the months of July and August. 

Maggots are sometimes generated under adhering dung 
on the breech. They are to be removed and the same 
remedies applied. Maggots in the feet will be mentioned 
under the head of Hoof- Rot. 

Costi^ing Rams. — It is not often that a properly trained 
ram gives much trouble by leaping good fences — particularly 
if he is allowed one or two companions. But it is not very 
safe to allow very valuable grown rams to run together, 
even if acquainted and ordinarily peaceable. Nobody can 
tell how soon a sudden and fatal battle between them Avill 
occur. A choice ram should only be mated with a weather 
or two, or after lamb-weaning with some ram lambs. I 
would sooner, if necessary, build a high board fence round a 
sufficient enclosure for stock rams, than hopple or clog them. 
Hoppling, when resorted to, is effected by fastening a leather 
strap around a fore and a hind leg, just above the pastern 
joints, leaving the legs about the natural distance apart. 
The ends should be broad enousrh not to cut into the flesh. 



* My informant is Mr. Prosper Elithorp, of Bridport, Vermont. He considers it 
much more effectual than turpentine in continuing to repel the attack of flies. It is 
soluble in two and a third parts of alcohol. It dissolves in about 20 parts of cold 
water, and in three of boiling water. But a boiling saturated solution deposits it 
again in crystals after cooling. Applied externally it is an active stimulant and caustic 
and has been much used with other substances in applications to ill-conditioned ulcers 



TRAINING HAMS. 191 

Clogging is effected by fastening a billet of wood to one fore- 
leg by a straj). It used to be quite customary to fasten two 
rams together by a long yoke having bows like an ox yoke. 
These and similar modes of confinement are injurious to the 
sheep, and they are at best insecure. 

Training Rams. — Great pains should be taken to teach 
stock rams the most perfect docility. They should be so 
tame that their keeper can anywhere walk up and put his 
hands on them. They should be taught to lead by the halter 
and to stand confined by the halter as quietly as well broken 
horses. But a rope should never be put around their heads, 
as it rubs and tears off the wool. An iron ring about an inch 
and a half in diameter, should be attached by an eye to a 
small bolt passing through the thin part of the (left) horn, 
confined on the other side by a nut. The halter should be a 
strap of leather with an iron snap, so that it can be readily 
fastened to or detached from the ring. On the hornless 
English ram the strap must buckle around the neck. 

From being teazed or petted — or from natural viciousness 
of temper — a ram sometimes acquires a habit of attacking 
strangers who enter its enclosure — and occasionally even 
its keeper. Another will strike only when some other sheep 
in the flock is caught. A cross ram that requires constant 
watching, is not only an annoyance but a serious danger — 
for the full blow of one might inflict material injury and even 
death. Unless of great value, such an animal should be 
castrated at once. If kept, he should have a blind put on 
him — that is, his face should be covered and his line of 
sight forward cut off by a flap of leather in front of his face, 
secured to the horns. If very quarrelsome, he may be 
entirely blinded by tying back the ends of the flap over his 
eyes. 

A ram that is not seriously disposed to be vicious, is often 
made so by the cowardice of those who are in the habit of 
meeting him. If he finds his attendant is afraid of him, he 
will soon exert his mastery to the utmost. It is not expedient 
to court an issue, but as soon as it is discovered that a ram is 
determined to test the question of mastery, his first motion 
toward an attack should be followed by carrying the war 
into Africa. He should be punished until he is taught the 
complete and absolute superiority of his attendant.* 



* He should be sprung in upon with a good tough whip — with two or three in the 
left hand to supply the place of broken ones — and such a storm of blows r ained on 



1 92 FENCES SALT. 

Fences. — It does not require a fence of more than very 
ordinary height, if it is kept constantly in repair, for the 
Merino or for the improved English breeds of sheep. But if 
portions of it are suffered to get partly down, and the flock pass 
over these lcnv portions a few times, some of the more restless 
ones learn to be constantly on the look-out for such opportuni- 
ties to escape ; and they Avill gradually leap higher and higher, 
until they are ready to scale any ordinary fence that lies in 
their way. Therefore, the fences of sheep pastures ought in 
all cases to be thoroughly repaired before turning out flocks 
in the spring; and they should be frequently examined 
through the season, particularly after heavy winds. 

If sheep are to be driven through an opening in the fence, 
that opening should be extended to the ground — so as never 
unnecessarily to make them acquainted with the fact that 
they can even leap over two rails. One "breachy" sheep 
will rapidly teach its habits to the whole flock ; and it 
ought to be considered a fraud to sell one, without giving 
notice of its vice. Such a sheep should not be tolerated in 
an "orderly" flock, for a single day. 

Stone walls unless very high and smooth, or unless 
surmounted by rough coping stones, set up on edge, do not 
turn sheep as well as rail or board fences. Sloping sod fences 
are still worse. In neAV cleared countries, where inclosures 
are very imperfectly made with brush, logs, etc., poorly kept 
sheep sometimes acquire a habit, almost equal to that of 
swine, of crawling through every opening. 

Salt. — Salt is admitted by all to be necessary for the 
health of sheep. It may be kept in the fields, under cover, 
where they can have constant access to it: or as much as they 
will cat may be fed to them once a week on the grass. It is 
common to throw it in handfulls on mossy knolls, on tufts of 
coarse grass not eaten doAvn by sheep, on new sprouting bull 
thistles, or around the roots of Canada thistles, or other 
weeds — so that it shall call in the aid of the sheep to 
extirpate vegetable enemies, and so that, if any of it is left, it 

his head that he stands confused, not daring; to open his eyes. If he retreats he 
should be pursued, and if recently shorn, whipped over the back as he runs, until 
thoroughly cowed. If he makes his attack on a person not prepared with whips, a 
few rapid and hearty kicks in the face will generally settle the contest. If he charges, 
the assailed person should stand firm until he is close upon him and then he should 
spring suddenly aside, and as the ram rushes past dash in upon him and so punish 
him that he will have no desire to renew the onset. If after one sound beating he is 
not quelled permanently, or for a considerable period, resort should at once be had to 
the knife or the blind. 



TAR, SULPHUR, ALUM, ETC. 193 

shall aid in the same particular, and in preparing the soil for 
better products. I prefer weekly salting, because it is just as 
well for the health of the sheep ; because it keeps them tame 
and ready to come at the call; and because it compels the 
owner or shepherd to see them once a week, and consequently 
to observe whether anything is amiss among them. He 
should make it an invariable rule to count them if practicable 
at salting. 

Tar, Sulphur, Alum, Etc. — Some persons compel healthy 
sheep to eat these substances by mixing them with salt, on 
the supposition that like salt, they tend to preserve health and 
increase thrift. There is no proof of this ; and we have every 
reason to believe that nature would prompt healthy sheep to 
eat these substances as it does salt, were they in like manner 
necessary to the animal economy. Tar is an impure turpen- 
tine, containing, however, some different principles, of which 
the principal medicinal one is creosote. Turpentine taken 
internally is stimulant, diuretic and in large doses laxative. 
The creosote, which adds greatly to the value of tar as an 
external application to old sores, has been used internally for 
various human maladies,* but it is one of the last things 
which would be administered in a state of perfect health. 
Sulphur is laxative, diaphoretic — i. e., it tends to produce a 
greater degree of perspiration than is natural, but less than in 
sweating — and resolvent, or in other words, possesses the 
power of repelling or dispersing tumors. Alum is astringent 
in moderate doses, purgative in large, and does not possess a 
property which gives it a place among the internal remedies 
of sheep, except as an astringent, and there it is inferior to 
other astringents f and is scarcely in use. Of what use can 
such a compound as this be to a healthy animal ? 

If there is a practice in sheep or any other animal 
husbandry, which more than all others lacks the shadow of 
an excuse, it is, in my opinion, that of cramming drugs or any 
substances which nature does not prompt them to eat, clown 
the throats of healthy brutes, under the idea that these will, 
or can, make them healthier / or under the wholly mistaken 
idea that the medicines which are appropriate to particular 
diseases, are therefore preventives of those diseases, or even 
exert a tendency in that direction. On the contrary, by dis- 

* Diabetes, epilepsy, neuralgia, chronic catarrh, hysteria, etc. 
+ Both Youatt and Spooner concur in this opinion. 
9 



194 WATER IN PASTURES. 

arranging the habitual and orderly action of' the functions, 
they actually increase the tendency to disease ; and if there is 
any prevailing malady at the time, they, as it were, open the 
door for its entrance. To what an innumerable number of 
domestic animals of all sorts would the epitaph of the 
Spaniard apply, with a slight change: "I was well; unj 
owner wanted me to be better, and I am here." 

Some extremely intelligent men, however, attach much 
virtue to the articles under consideration, in combination with 
salt, as a general remedy for certain obscure diseases. A. B. 
Allen, Esq., formerly editor of the American Agriculturist, 
writes me : — " My brother Lewis had a flock of about two hun- 
dred sheep which were dying off" with what was supposed to 
be the rot. They were on Grand Island. He called on me in 
despair, said he had done everything he could think of, and 
asked if I could help him. I told him to get large scows, 
load them with sheep and send them to my farm, nearly 
opposite to him on the main land. I then took long troughs 
made of two narrow boards put together in the form of a V. 
Into these I poured tar about three inches deep ; then I 
sprinkled sulphur profusely ; then salt and pulverized alum 
sparingly. Then I took each sheep and examined its feet 
thoroughly. If in the least diseased, I washed the feet clean 
with soap suds and applied the above mixture to them. The 
sheep would come to these troughs many times per day, 
just lick a little and go away. I believe I also placed some 
boards before and behind the troughs (for they stood in an 
open position) smeared with the above, so that they would be 
obliged to tread in the mixture when they went to the 
troughs. The tar, etc., was renewed as often as was 
necessary, for several weeks. The result was that only three 
or four sheep died after this : all the rest were soon restored 
to health, and in six weeks or so, my brother had the pleasure 
of selling as fine and healthy a fat flock to the butchers as 
was seen in Buffalo that season. I presume change of 
pastures and air were beneficial to my brother's flock, but let 
me tell you that there is nothing like plenty of tar, sulphur, 
salt and a modicum of pulverized alum to keep sheep in good 
health, especially on heavy soils, low grounds, and when the 
water is not over pure and abundant." 

Water in Pastures. — Water is not indispensable in 
summer pastures, but it is unquestionably beneficial to all 
sheep, and highly important for ewes suckling lambs. It will 



SHADE HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMER. 195 

do at any time in the summer to change sheep from a dry- 
to a watered field or range ; but the reverse of this I have 
always found injurious, particularly to nursing ewes and 
their lambs. 

Shade in Pastures. — The eagerness with which sheep 
seek shade from the full glare of the summer sun, is of itself 
a sufficient proof of its utility. Occasional trees or clumps of 
trees in each pasture afford the most natural shade. Where 
these and all others (except those made by open rail fences,) 
are lacking, I believe it would repay the flock-master to form 
artificial ones by the cheapest means within his reach ; and 
planting at the same time young, rapidly growing shade trees, 
for the future, would be a judicious and economical measure. 

Housing Sheep in Summer. — The comparatively small, 
choice, high-priced breeding flocks of Merinos are frequently, 
as has already been mentioned, housed from all summer rain- 
storms. They are put up nights when there is any prospect 
of rain, and some put them up nights habitually after the 
lapse of a few weeks after shearing. The object is to preserve 
the yolk in the wool, and thereby obtain color and weight 
of fleece. 

Sheltering in wai*m weather is unnecessary, and in the 
case of the sheep, as in that of all other animals, it is the 
tendency of habitual non-exposure to beget an inability to 
withstand exposure. But the Merino is not only a,n exceed- 
ingly hardy animal, but one which possesses a remarkable 
power of adapting itself to different circumstances. I have 
repeatedly bought sheep out of these summer housed flocks, 
and found no difficulty whatever in accustoming them to 
ordinary treatment. Housing in summer is not, then, of 
itself of much consequence, if it and its effects are, as I 
now believe them to be, universally understood. This being 
the case it would be binding the sheep breeder by more 
stringent restrictions than we impose on other breeders, if 
public opinion refused to tolerate the practice. * 

* I expressed different views in my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, 1862. 
While I stated that the leading breeders were guilty of no deception in this particular, 
because they avowed their treatment and their motives for it, I urged that it led to 
disappointments on the part of the buyer, and that it was a purely unnecessary waste 
of labor and capital. Further information has convinced me that the effect of summer 
housing sheep is about as generally understood among sheep men, as the effect of 
stabling and currying horses is understood among horsemen. And the animals sub- 
jected to it or not subjected to it can be as readily distinguished from each other, in 
the fall, when the selling of breeding sheep commences. It is a waste of time ; but 
why shall not the sheep breeder be permitted to waste his time as well as the cattle 



196 TAMPERING SHEEP. 

Pampering. — But when housing is connected with 
pampering, with .1 high and forced system of feeding, the 
case is different. To make show sheep, to make rams 
saleable, to stimulate an unnatural growth of wool and 
secretion of yolk, and thus produce what are termed "brag 
fleeces" — to cover up defects of carcass, to convey false 
impressions as to the natural size and substance of the animal 
— some persons feed their sheep a good portion of the summer 
and all winter, as much as they can safely get them to eat 
of the richest feed. This treatment is not often given to 
breeding ewes, at least in its full extent, for it materially 
interferes with their own safety in lambing, and the lambs 
are small, weak and difficult to raise. But to young 
ewes kept for sale and for show sheep, and to rams kept for' 
sale, it is applied to the fullest extent. Thus a good sized 
Merino ram is made to produce three or four more pounds, 
and a good sized ewe one or two more pounds, of wool and 
yolk, than they would if only kept in good ordinary condition. 

But he who buys such sheep (for other purposes than 
slaughtering) — particularly if they are descended from 
several generations of ancestors which have been pampered 
in the same way — buys a spent hot -bed. It never will 
produce again the monster fleece which tempted him to give 
a monster price for it. If its feed is kept up, it has little 
value for breeding purposes ; if its feed is taken off, it runs 
down, becomes debilitated and incapable of withstanding 
ordinary hardships, is subject to every malady, and succumbs 
to the first one. This was the case with that tribe of monster 
French rams which first spread over this country, and died 
within a year like mushrooms — ruining the reputation of the 
breed. Some of them had been so thoroughly pampered, 
that they could not sustain themselves on good pasturage, 
and perished almost without disease, of mere debility. This 
mode of preparing breeding sheep for sale is not a legal 
fraud ; but it is dishonest and dishonorable by whomsoever it 
may be practiced. 

No one will deny that every man has a right to keep his 
sheep icell, whether he proposes to sell them or not. Good 
keeping may be pronounced the custom of all breeders. I 
am not sure, indeed, that it is not necessary to certain 



breeder, the horse breeder, and the breeder of every other description ? The world 
baa agreed to find fault with no class of producers for "putting the best side out," 
provided no deception is practiced and no injury done to the thing produced in thus 
fitting it for market. 



PAMPERING SHEEP. 197 

improvements. For example, size cannot be increased, nor 
even kept up without abundant feed. The highest bred 
Short - Horn dwindles rapidly in size in each succeeding 
generation — however strong the individual and family 
tendency to size — if put on thin upland pasturage and fed 
only hay in winter. I do not suppose that Mr. Ellman could 
ever have raised the flat rib of the unimproved South Down 
to its present almost horizontal spring from the back-bone, 
had he suffered his sheep to remain ill-fed and empty — 
because, while it is true that the viscera adapt their size to 
the inclosing structures, it is equally true that the bony and 
muscular inclosing structures adapt their size and shape to the 
viscera. Whatever xoe may do, nature insists on and enforces 
harmony ! 

Good keep may be pronounced necessary to improvement 
in other particulars : but while the fire warms and cheers and 
strengthens, the conflagration destroys! Knaves are generally 
very much puzzled to ascertain, in all such cases, where the 
good agency ends and the bad one begins. Men of common 
sense, common experience, and common honesty, labor under 
no such difficulties. They can decide at once between good 
keep and destructive pampering. 



CHAPTER XVm. 

PALL MANAGEMENT. 

WEANING AND FALL FEEDING LAMBS SHELTERING LAMBS 

IN FALL FALL FEEDING AND SHELTERING BREEDING EAVES 

SELECTING EWES FOR THE RAM COUPLING PERIOD 

OF GESTATION MANAGEMENT OF RAMS DURING COUPLING 

DIVIDING FLOCKS FOR WINTER. 

Weaning and Fall Feeding Lambs. — Lambs of all 
breeds should be weaned at about four months old ; and if 
drouth or other circumstances have occasioned a particular 
scarcity of pasturage for the lambs and their dams, and the 
former can be put on good feed by separating them, it would 
be advisable to take off the lambs three or even four weeks 
earlier. The somewhat prevalent idea that it is improper to 
wean them in " dog days," has not a particle of foundation. 
But whatever the period of weaning, sweet, tender pasturage 
is indispensable for them. New seeded stubbles and the 
rowen of meadows are usually reserved for them in this 
country. But many flock-masters prefer rested pastures — 
i. e., those which, after being fed close, are cleared of stock 
and allowed to spring up fresh. A few of our breeders of 
English sheep fold their ram lambs on rape. 

The modes of weaning and fall feeding lambs now 
practiced in England may interest the breeders* of English 
sheep in this country. The following directions are from the 
Royal Agricultural Society's prize essay on the Management 
of Sheep, written by Mr. Robert Smith, of Burley, 1847: 

" Lambs should never be placed upon rested summer-eaten 
clover pastures, however tempting they may appear, as they 
invariably cause scouring, fever and other severe ailments. 
Old grass, clover, or grass-eddish [after-math] is preferable 
until the autumn quarter commences, which is considered an 
important one, as much depends upon the manner in which 
the lambs are started, or taught to eat their winter feed. In 



WEANING AND FALL FEEDING. 199 

the middle of September the lambs are placed in moderate 
lots upon grass or seeds, as, from the domestic habits peculiar 
to the race, they are fond of picking their food at this season 
of the year, cabbages being thrown to them upon the pastures, 
or cut for them in troughs : after a short time a few white 
turnips are mixed with them as a preparation for the winter. 
As October advances they are placed upon the common or 
white turnips. Some breeders mix a little cole seed in the 
first sowing, which is an excellent plan. After a short time 
the wether lambs are given \ lb. of oil cake, or corn to that 
value, each per day ; at Christmas they are placed upon the 
Swedes which are cut for them, as also the white ones upon 
bad layer." 

In the " commended essay" * of Mr. T. E. Pawlett, on the 
same subject, 1847, occur the following statements: — "I have 
found lambs to thrive much better on old keeping — as red 
clover, saufoin, or grass — than upon what are termed 
eddishes ; yet I must state that old white clover, or trefoil 
stubbles, are, when they are seeded and have become dry, the 
very worst of all kinds of food for young lambs. If, however, 
proper food cannot be provided for them, they should often 
have their pastures changed to keep them healthy, when a 
little oil cake or a few split peas or beans (one pint a day 
among four lambs,) would do them no harm. Having proved 
by many experiments the advantages of putting young lambs, 
after weaning, upon old keeping — namely, pastures that have 
been stocked from the commencement of the spring — over 
eddishes or pastures that have been previously mown the 
same season, I will state one experiment as a sample of the 
rest. In the year 1834, I put a lot of lambs on some old 
sanfoin, having a few tares carried to them, and another lot of 
lambs were put on young sanfoin, or an eddish which had 
grown to a pasture ; these, also, had some tares. Each lot 
was weighed at the commencement, and again at the end of 
the trial : 

" Gain in weight on a lot of lambs fed on old sanfoin, from July 10 to August 

10, each on the average, _ 14M lbs 

Lambs fed on sanfoin eddish, gained each in the same time, 8>£ lbs 

Difference, 6 lbs." 

The moist, mild climate and constant rain, in England, 
afiect pastures very differently from the scorching and often 



* This is headed as follows:— "A Commended Essay, written in competition for 
the premium awarded to Mr. R. Smith, by the Royal Agricultural Society, 1847." Mr. 
Pawlett is known as a distinguished breeder of Leicesters. 



21 ' W KANING AND FALL FEEDING. 

very dry summers of the United States; and as a general 
thing 1 have found good fresh rowen or after -math on 
meadows, or the new seeded grass in grain stubbles, better 
feed for lambs than rested pastures, unless the latter have 
been seeded the same or the previous year, and the grass on 
them is tender and fresh. 

Both of the above quotations, however, teach one valuable 
lesson to those who have not already learned it — the high 
importance of giving lambs generous keep from the time 
of weaning until winter in order that they may continue 
growing rapidly during that entire period. If by poor keep 
or any other cause, their growth is seriously arrested, and 
instead of the rounded plumpness of thrifty lambs, they put 
on the dried-up appearance of " little old sheep " — the poorer 
ones are likely to perish outright before the close of winter ; 
and by no amount of care or feed can the others be brought to 
the next spring equal with lambs which receive only common 
feed in winter, but Avhich were kept properly through the fall 
months. 

Lambs, when separated from their dams for weaning, 
should, if the feed is good enough, be left for a few days m 
the field where the flock has been previously kept — their dams 
being taken away to a new one. The lambs are more 
contented and make fewer efforts to escape when thus familiar 
with the place. The two fields should be so far opart that 
they cannot hear each others' bleating. If this is imprac- 
ticable, the fence should be carefully stopped, for if a few 
lambs crawl through and again reach their dams, they will not 
give up renewing their efforts to escape and communicating 
their own restlessness to the others, for twice the usual weaning 
period. Two or three escapes establish a habit which it is 
difficult to overcome. 

It is a great advantage to put two or three very tame old 
crones which have not lambs of their own, or a lead wether, 
among the lambs, to teach them to come at the call ; and to 
lead them up to, and set them the example of eating salt, 
trough -feed, etc. 

The dams should be put on the dryest feed on the farm for 
a fortnight after separation, to stop their flow of milk. The 
udders of some of them may require to be milked out once or 
twice, and if these exhibit much redness and warmth, they 
should be bathed as recommended at page 158. Smearing 
the udders with a thick, pasty mixture of soap and Avater, 
after a previous washing in cold water, is sometimes resorted 



SHELTERING LAMBS IN FALL. 201 

to. I have already sufficiently adverted to the high import- 
ance of preserving the udders of breeding ewes in a perfectly 
normal condition. When entirely dried off, they should be 
put on good feed to get into condition for winter. 

As soon as the fall frosts have touched the grass, it is 
highly beneficial — nay, it is indispensable in good sheep 
farming — to give lambs some kind of artificial feed. Turnips 
are (I am sorry to say,) but little raised among the great mass 
of our sheep farmers, and rape and cabbage are nearly 
unknown as field crops. Any of these would be vastly 
cheaper than grain feed ; but in default of them, grain feed 
should be given. At first a little sprinkling of oats, shorts, 
bran or the like should be put once a day in troughs, in their 
pasture. By keeping them from salt on other occasions and 
salting their trough feed very slightly, they, led up by the 
crones, will first nibble at and then eat it ; and when even a 
tew do this, the rest will rapidly follow their example. A 
spoonful of oats a head is more than enough to begin with ; 
and when they get well to eating, this may be gradually 
increased to half a gill per head — and before winter to a gill, 
or to its equvalent in shorts, bran, or other grain. Bran 
and shorts, or shorts and oats, mixed half-and-half, are 
proverbially good feed for lambs. An addition of turnips to 
these would, leave nothing to desire. Indian corn, in despite 
of the fears entertained of it by some persons, for that object, 
is also an excellent lamb feed ; but it must be given more 
sparingly. A bushel of it is equivalent to its weight in 
oats.* 

Sheltering Lambs in Fall. — Sheltering lambs from the 
heavy, cold rain-storms which fall for a month or a month 
and a half before the setting in of winter, in our northern 
latitudes, is now beginning to be practiced by all the best 
flock-masters ; and when the ground becomes wet and cold, 
and frequently freezes, toward the close of autumn they should 
also be regularly housed every night. It is well to have 
racks of hay ready for them in their stables ; and it is very 
easy to learn them to eat grain, etc., there. If it is regularly 
placed in the troughs over night, with a very light dusting of 
salt, as before mentioned, but two or three days will elapse 
before it will be regularly and entirely consumed. Getting 



* A bushel of corn weighs 58 lbs., a bushel oats 32 lbs., by the rule established in 
New York. 

9* 



•JO 'J FALL TREATMENT OF BREEDING EAVES. 

the lambs accustomed to the stables before winter, is in itself 
no inconsiderable advantage. 

Fall Feeding and Sheltering Breeding Ewes. — It is 
a common and very truthful saying among observing flock- 
masters, that " a sheep well summered is half wintered." 
Breeding ewes should be brought into good condition by the 
time the first killing frosts occur. After that, they should not 
be suffered to fall off, but be kept rather improving by feeding 
them, if the condition of the pastures render it necessary, Avith 
pumpkins, turnip-tops, and any other perishable green feed on 
the farm — and after these are exhausted, with turnips. If 
some of the oldest and youngest ewes remain thin, they 
should be separated from the others and fed rather better — 
grain not being withheld, if it is necessary to bring them 
into plump condition before winter. Shelter from late, cold 
storms, though not as important as in the case ot lambs, 
is very desirable, and there can be no doubt that with persons 
possessing convenient and commodious sheep stables, it will 
well pay for the trouble to put up breeding ewes nights 
whenever the weather is raw and the ground wet and cold. * 
In default of artificial green feed, hay or corn stalks should be 
regularly fed to sheep — once or twice a day, according to 
circumstances — as the pasturage becomes insufficient for 
their full support. 

A singular idea prevails among a class of our farmers, in 
regard to fall feeding sheep, which has been handed down 
from those days when the two dozen gaunt, "native" sheep 
which belonged to a farm and which roamed nearly as 
unrestrained as wild deer through field and forest, did not 
"come in to the barn" before the ground was covered with 
snow. In coppices, on briars, and in swamps where the 
water kept the snow dissolved — and by digging in the 
fields — they even found subsistence until the snow became 
deep and so packed and crusted by sun and wind as to prevent 
their reaching the ground. They then retreated to the barn- 
yard, usually lank enough ! But every fanner knows the 
immense difference whether in the fields in summer, or in the 



* My own flocks have generally been too large and spread over too much surface, 
to render housing from storms practicable until the sheep are brought into their 
Winter quarters: and if well kept, they certainly do well enough without it. Bet I 
housed a flock "f Iambs last fall, and I thought the benefit was very obvious. I have 
repeatedly observed the same thing in other men's flocks — particularly in Vermont. 
In that State, fall housing is almost as common, and is regarded as almost as indispen- 
sable, as winter housing. This is probably somewhat a question of climate. 



FALL TREATMENT OF BREEDING EWES. 203 

stable or barn-yard in winter, between recruiting up and 
getting into condition two dozen, or two hundred lean, 
reduced sheep. The little handful of " natives " choosing 
every morsel of their food over one or two hundred acres of 
land, through the summer, had high condition to fall back on, 
in the pinch of the early winter ; and when put into the barn- 
yards Avith the cattle and young horses, tiiey still chose all the 
best morsels of the hay — robbing the latter animals — so 
that they not only made a shift to live, but usually got round 
to the next spring in tolerable order. True, when let out to 
grass again, their condition began to change so rapidly that 
they frequently shed off nearly all their wool — so that many 
of them had not half a pound a piece at shearing ; and those 
which escaped this were very likely to have their fleeces half 
ruined by cotting. But what of all this ? This was the way 
things were done in those days ! 

Brought up under such traditions, many of our older 
farmers who consider it highly essential as well as profitable 
to give their cows, horses and other animals, artificial and 
extra feed a month before the winter sets in, consider every 
pound of fodder bestowed on sheep at that time, so much 
taken from the profits which these animals are bound, under 
all circumstances, to yield to their owners — a total loss ! 
A more absurd and pernicious notion could not prevail. If 
sheep could withstand the effects of such treatment with as 
little danger to life as the horse or cow, it would still occasion 
a much greater proportionable loss in their products.* But 
they can not. The former are capable of being raised at any 
period of the year, from the lowest condition of leanness, 
without danger. The muscular and vascular systems of the 
sheep are so much weaker, that if they become reduced below 
a certain point in winter — and if they herded together in 
considerable numbers — their restoration to good condition is 
always difficult and doubtful, and, in unfavorable winters, 
impracticable. Their progress thenceforth is frequently about 
as follows : If fed liberally with grain, their appetites become 
poor and capricious, or if they eat freely it is followed by 



* I urge no "petting" or enervating system of treatment. I have not five times 
within thirty years fed hay or grain, or brought in the body of my store sheep from 
their summer pastures, before the fall of snow — which generally occurs in this 
climate not far from the first of December. But I should have done it in all cases, if 
they had not sufficient feed in their pastures. In this respect I would put them on 
precisely the same footing with cows and horses. And I would sooner" limit the feed 
of either of them in the winter, than during the month preceding winter. Unless the 
fall feed was unusually abundant and good, I have always fed my lambs and crones 
pumpkins, turnip tops, grain, etc., and a little hay as soon as they would eat it. 



204 FALL FEEDING OF BREEDING EWES. 

obstinate and enfeebling diarrheas. Low, obscure forms of 
disease seem to attack them and become chronic. The 
strength of the lambs and of the very old sheep, rapidly 
fails. They scarcely move about. The skin around the eyes 
becomes bloodless. The eyes lose their bright, alert look, 
and yellow, waxy matter collects about and under them. A 
discharge frequently commences from the nose — perhaps the 
result of a cold, but how or when taken it is frequently 
difficult to say. The viscid mucus dries about the nostrils so 
that they cannot breathe freely without its removal. The 
evacuations become dark colored, viscid, and have an offensive 
odor. The strength fails more rapidly; the sheep becomes 
unable to rise without assistance ; and it falls when jostled to 
the least degree by its associates. It will taste a few morsels 
of choice hay, but generally the appetite is nearly gone. 
Some, however, will eat grain pretty freely to the last. 
Finally, it becomes unable to stand, aud after reaching this 
stage, it usually lingers along from two or three days to a 
week, and then, emaciated, covered with filth behind, and 
emitting a disgusting fetor, it perishes miserably. 

Post mortem examination shows that this is not the rot of 
Europe. Some American flock-masters term it the " hunger 
rot." If to this could be added something to express the fact 
that the hunger which engenders it, usually occurs in the fall, 
before the setting in of winter, it would be an admirably 
descriptive name ! * It is true, that entering the winter poor 
does not prove equally destructive in all instances. Its effects 
doubtless may be materially enhanced or diminished by the 
regularity and excellence of the winter management, the nice 
condition of the feed, etc., or the reverse of these conditions. 
And the character of the winter itself exerts a very marked 
influence. Sheep thrive best when the temperature is compar- 
atively steady — no matter how cold. A cold, blustering, 
stormy winter is preferable to one of greatly milder tempera- 
ture, if its fluctuations are frequent and great — storm and 
thaw, rapidly succeeding to each other. There comes 
occasionally what farmers term a "dying winter," when 
almost any adverse conditions become fatal — and when 
almost every disorder assumes an epizootic, malignant and 
fatal type. 

Certain specific diseases, like cold, catarrh, pulmonary 
affections," diarrhea] dysentery, etc. — the most common ones 

* It might not inappropriately be termed the "fall-hunger rot." 



SELECTING EWES FOR THE RAM. 205 

which are of a dangerous description — are far more liable to 
attack sheep when in low condition. And it is surprising 
with what destructive effect ticks will work on very poor 
sheep and lambs. The latter are sometimes literally depleted 
and irritated to death by their blood sucking. 

I have specially and strenuously urged the point of 
bringing sheep into the winter in good condition, because it 
admits of no doubt that this, far more than any other one 
item of management, constitutes the sheet anchor of all 
successful sheep farming. 

There is a point of importance which I have overlooked 
in the preceding statements. A flock of ewes which are in 
inferior condition, and especially if they are at the time 
running down, will not take the ram as readily as a fleshy, 
thriving flock. It will take six or seven weeks to get the 
bulk of them served, and then a number of them will "miss," 
especially if the weather is very cold. A high-conditioned 
flock is often served in about thirty days. The saving of 
time and trouble at lambing, and the superior evenness and 
value of a flock of lambs which is obtained by having them 
all yeaned within a few days of each other, is well known to 
all sheep farmers. Many flock-masters give their ewes extra 
feed during the coupling season, to promote this object. A 
little sharp exercise, like an occasional run across a field, is 
thought by many to excite ewes to heat — but I have never 
tried the experiment. 

Selecting Ewes for the Ram. — Where there is an 
opportunity to choose between several valuable rams, the 
selection of the ewes to breed to each, requires judgment and 
careful study. The flock of ewes should be examined, the 
individual excellencies and faults of each, and her hereditary 
predispositions and actual habits of breeding, so far as can be 
ascertained, fully taken into account ; and then she should be 
marked for the ram, w T hich, in himself, and by his previous 
get, appears, on the whole, best calculated to produce 
improvement in their united progeny. Many of the Vermont 
farmers thus divide their small flocks of ewes into parcels of 
ten or twenty each, and take them to rams owned by a 
number of different breeders : for, by a prevailing custom, the 
liberality of which cannot be too highly commended, all the 
most distinguished breeders of that State allow other persons 
to send ewes to their best stock rams for a merely nominal 
compensation, considering the advantages which are often 



206 COUPLING BAMS AND EWES. 

thus secured.* This enables the owners of flocks who can not 
afford to incur the serious cost and risk of keeping a number 
of high-priced stock rams, to obtain, notwithstanding, the 
services of those which are best adapted to breeding with 
each class of their ewes. And the young or less skillful 
breeder can thus, too, obtain the immense advantage of using 
the most perfect sire rams in the country — those which are 
too costly for his purchase f — and those which will improve 
his flock more in the first generation than he could possibly 
otherwise improve it in five generations. 

Coupling. — Very few flock-masters now feel that they 
can afford to bestow the whole annual use of a choice, high- 
priced ram on the seventy-five, or at the very utmost, on the 
one hundred ewes he can serve, if he is permitted to run at 
large with them ; and to accomplish this, he must be a very 
strong animal, and must be taken out of the flocks nights and 
fed by himself. And no even tolerably good manager 
turns two or more valuable rams at the same time into the 
same flock to waste their strength, \ excite, worry, fight, and 
perhaps kill each other. Even the ewes are frequently injured 
by the blows inflicted by a ram while another ram is 
covering her. 

There are several different modes of putting ewes singly. 
Some keep "teasers" in the flock so " aproned "§ that they 
can not serve a ewe, and daubed with lard and Venetian red 
under the brisket, so that when a ewe will stand for them she 
is marked red on the rump. The flock is driven several 
times a day into a small inclosure (usually a sheep barn,) ii\ 
apartments of which the stock rams are kept, the " redded " 
ewes are drawn out and each is taken to the ram for which 
she is marked. After being served once she is turned into 
the flock of served ewes. 



* The customary price has been from $1 to $2 per ewe — but I am informed that 
some leading breeders ■will feel themselves under the necessity of raising the price 
of service. 

t Some of the more celebrated stock rams whose services are thus let, would sell 
for more than the entire flocks of many of those who hire their services 1 

% The question is sometimes asked whether the cohabitation of two males with 
the same female, occasions superfetation, or conception after prior conception. When 
there are two or more progeny at the same birth, facts have occasionally occurred 
which appeared to show quite conclusively that they were begotten by different males, 
but such cases are exceptional ; and when there is but one progeny, no facts ever go to 
show that it is the combined progeny of two male parents. 

§ The apron is a piece of coarse, open sacking, which covers the belly from the 
fore to the hind-legs, and extends half way up each side. Careful persons tie or buckle 
it over the back at both ends and in the middle, and then fasten it from slipping back 
by a strap round the breast, and from slipping forward by a strap around the breech. 
Though allowed to bag a little in the middle, the urine soon renders it a very dirty 
affair. When I last used teasers, I kept the same one in a flock only every third day. 



PERIOD OF GESTATION. 207 

Another mode is to use no teasers, but to drive in the 
flock selected for a particular ram twice a day, and let him 
loose in it ; and as soon as a ewe is served to draw her out. 
After three or four are served, the ram is returned to his 
quarters, and the remainder of the flock to the field. A very 
vigorous ram may be allowed to serve from eight to ten ewes 
a day. This last mode is now generally preferred. It takes 
up but little more time than the other. It saves the expense 
and trouble of keeping teazers, which must be frequently 
changed ; for after making their fruitless efforts for two or 
three days, they generally almost cease to mark ewes. Lambs 
and yearlings are nearly useless as teazers. Good stock rams 
ought not to be put on this service, for it rapidly reduces 
them in condition. 

Any mode of effecting the object in view — one on the 
correct management of which the success of breeding so 
much depends — must be conducted with rigid accuracy, so 
that the mark on the ewe shall in all cases indicate the ram 
actually used. An erroneous record is vastly worse than 
none. It misleads the owner, and cheats the purchaser who 
buys with reference to its showings. 

The served ewes should be returned to the ram after the 
thirteenth day. If they come in heat again, it is usually from 
the fourteenth to the seventeenth day; but the number is 
ordinarily quite small if the ram is a good one, and is well 
managed. * 

Period op Gestation. — The time during which ewes go 
with young frequently varies upwards of a week — in some 
unusual cases, nearly two weeks. They usually go longer 
with ram than with ewe lambs. The average period of 
gestation does not usually vary much from one hundred and 
fifty-two days. 

Management of Rams During Coupling. — Whatever 
system of coupling is adopted, the ram demands extra care 
and feed during the season of it. Whether taken from the 
flock only at night, or kept from it entirely except when 



* A ram which has been ill, or overworked, may not get lambs one year and may 
prove a sure lamb-getter the next. Sometimes rams fail in this respect in the opening 
of the season, but not subsequently — or vice versa. Occasionally a Merino ram is 
hung so low in the sheath that he cannot serve a ewe. If he is valuable, some persons 
give him the advantage of a platform, raised three or four inches. Others buckle a 
broad strap tight enough around his body to elevate the point of the sheath sufficiently. 
With some rams confinement to dry feed a few days is all that is necessary. 



208 . MANAGEMENT OF RAMS IN COUPLING. 

covering, his separate inclosure should of course be dry, clean 
and comfortable — properly ventilated and lighted: and it is 
better that it entirely seclude him from seeing or hearing the 
ewes, except when he is admitted to them. It should also be 
strong enough to defy his utmost efforts to escape. * He 
should have fresh water in a clean bucket (no sheep freely 
drinks dirty water, or out of a dirty bucket,) at least three 
times a day — the choicest of hay — and be fed on grain 
morning and evening. That mixture of oats and peas which 
is produced by sowing three bushels of the former to one of 
the latter — with one-quarter part of wheat added, constitutes 
an admirable grain feed, when the ram's powers are severely 
taxed. A quart of this mixture daily, and sometimes even 
more, is often fed to a good-sized, mature animal, which has 
been used to hard service and high feed. It would, however, 
cloy the appetite, if the feeding was not commenced two or 
three weeks in advance of the coupling season and gradually 
raised to that point. This should be done not only to prevent 
that result, but to give the ram a degree of preparation for 
his work. He ought, by no means, however, to be shut up in 
his stall without exercise during this preparatory period. 

It is not to be understood that the precise mixture of feed 
above recommended, is indispensable. But all the articles 
named contain a very large proportion of those nitrogenized 
matters which produce muscle, or lean meat, and consequently 
strength, energy and activity, — while Indian corn, oil meal, 
etc., contain an excess of carbon which tends to the production 
of fat. The ram demands the former, and is only encum- 
bered by any excess of the latter. 

One rule is to be kept steadily in view in feeding a ram 
during the coupling season. He should not be fed more at a 
meal than he will consume briskly and cleanly. If he leaves 
any part of his allowance, it should be removed from his 
manger ; and if this is found to be habitual, the allowance 
should be reduced. 

I regard it as highly inexpedient to keep two rams in the 
same inclosure or room at this period, however well one may 
seem to be subjected to the other. Jealousy often provokes 
even the weaker one to make battle : and an animal of great 
value may be sacrificed by a chance blow. 

The modes of putting ewes and managing rams I have 

* Powerful Merino rams which have acquired the habit of breaking inclosures, 
will often dash through the side of a barn, or knock a stable door from its hinges, at 
the second or third blow. They are " battering-rams," indeed I 



DIVIDING FLOCKS FOR WINTER. 209 

recommended demand some expenditure of time and labor. 
It would probably consume all the time of an active shepherd 
properly to take care of four hundred and fifty or five hundred 
ewes and the number of rams required to serve them, during 
the ordinary coupling period of thirty-five or forty days : and 
if he had but two hundred and fifty or three hundred to take 
care of, it would still consume all his time. But the labor of 
one or two men for that period, would be a very trifling 
matter compared with the benefits thus secured. These 
directions are not, of course, intended for the owners of 
cheap, common flocks who are aiming at no important 
improvements, and who would regard $25 an enormous price 
to pay for a ram, and who oftener do not pay more than $5.* 
But for the last ten if not twenty years preceding the late rise 
in the price of sheep, those Merino and English rams which 
breeders regard as first class ones, have sold for at least $100 
a piece — frequently for twice or three times that • amount, 
and, as already remarked, no property is more precarious. 

When the period fixed on for coupling is over, it is 
generally decidedly best to separate the rams from the flock 
and keep them separated until that period again recurs. If 
rams are allowed to run Avith the ewes either in winter or 
summer, there is always a chance of having lambs come at 
very unseasonable times. Eating at the same rack or trough 
in winter with horned rams, is dangerous to breeding ewes. 
If the former are cross the danger is great ; but even if not, 
the ram, in making his way to the rack through a crowd of 
ewes, is liable to inflict unintentional injury on those in 
advanced stages of pregnancy. 

Dividing Flocks for Winter. — In latitudes where 
sheep are fed dry feed, and are kept confined to stables and 
small yards in winter, even Merinos will not bear herding 
together in large numbers. They should be divided into 
separate lots before, and preparatory to, going into whiter 
quarters. It is better that these lots be made as small as 
convenience permits, and not exceed 100 each. The sheep in 
each should be as nearly uniform in size and strength as 
practicable, or otherwise the stronger will rob the weaker, 
both at the rack and trough, and will jostle them about 



* I could illustrate the curious kind of economy sometimes exhibited in regard to 
rams, by naming an individual residing on the borders of this (Cortland) county, 
■who has within the last five years allowed 60 good ewes owned by him to go without 
the ram one year, rather than pay $10 for a decent one, which was offered him at that 
price ! 



210 DIVIDING FLOCKS FOR WINTER. 

whenever they come in contact. Breeding ewes, Avethers and 
Weaned lambs, should always be kept in separate parcels 
from each other, in well regulated flocks. 

Sheep which are old and feeble, late born lambs, etc., had 
better be sold at any price or given to a poor neighbor who 
has time to nurse and take care of them. But if kept by the 
flock-master, they should be put by themselves in a particularly 
sheltered and comfortable place where they can receive extra 
feed and attention. This is usually called "the hospital." 

English sheep should be divided into still smaller parcels, 
and with the same regard to age, condition and sex. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WINTER MANAGEMENT. 

WINTER SHELTER TEMPORARY SHEDS HAY BARNS WITH 

OPEN SHEDS SHEEP BARNS OR STABLES CLEANING OUT 

STABLES IN WINTER YARDS LITTERING YARDS CON- 
FINING SHEEP IN YARDS AND TO DRY FEED. 

Winter Shelter.— It has already been assumed that a 
degree of winter shelter is requisite for the most profitable 
management of sheep in all parts of the United States. The 
Merino can withstand far greater exposures to extremes and 
to rapid fluctuations of weather, than any other improved 
or really valuable breed. In Spain it was unsheltered. In 
Western Texas — in that magnificent sheep-growing region 
which lies immediately north of San Antonio — it has been 
claimed that it requires no shelter ; but facts which I shall 
allude to hereafter incontestibly prove the contrary. 




SHED OF POLES. 

Temporary Sheds. — Adequate shelter in warm regions 
like Western Texas, demands no arrangements which would 
be at all expensive in a well-wooded region, or where sawed 
timber could be obtained at moderate prices — for the 
cheapest form of open shed (i. e., open on one side,) would 
answer the purpose. Or, excellent sheds might be constructed 
with logs or poles. The pole shed is made as shown above. 



212 STELLS — BARNS WITH OPEN SHEDS. 

This is covered with straw, reeds, sods, brush, clay, or 
anything else which will prevent the wind and rain from 
driving through it. It is decidedly improved by raising the 
lower ends of the poles two feet by means of a log, stone-wall, 
or a bank of earth or sods. 

Clumps of Trees and Stells. — If one generation would 
be persuaded to make arrangements for another generation, 
good sheep shelters could be cheaply formed, and on the most 
comprehensive scale, by planting clumps or belts of woodland, 
for that purpose, on the vast timberless plains of the South- 
west. Evergreen trees would be far preferable, if they could 
be obtained, and would flourish in the situations where they 
are required. With stone walls or hedges on the west and 
north, even a small clump of such trees would form a far 
better stell than many of those which are used on the bleak 
and storm-swept highlands of Scotland, — which consist of 
walls alone. Larger clumps would answer without the walls ; 
but they should be sufficient to protect sheep from the fury of 
the wind, which renders cold vastly less endurable by them 
— particularly when it follows a rain which has penetrated to 
their skins. For this object, and indeed for all objects, naked 
stells composed merely of high stone walls, board fences, or 
double lines of poles with straw, sods or earth filled in 
between them, are far better than no protection. 

Hay Barns with Open Sheds. — In all the States lying 
south of 40 deg., open sheds are sufficient winter protection 
for Merino sheep, and probably so for the English mutton 
varieties, — though perhaps the high-bred New Leicester would, 
in many situations, find more protection profitable at some 
periods of the year. 

Hay barns and sheep sheds like those on the following 
page, or of some analagous construction, w r ere much in vogue 
in the Northern and Eastern States, a few years since. 

But there were many difficulties about them, in the 
climates of those States. Snow often blew under the sheds 
when the wind was in front ; and in severe gales, even when 
the wind was in their rear, it drifted over from behind — 
piling up large banks immediately in front, which gradually 
encroached on the sheltered space, and filled its bottom with 
water whenever there was a thaw. 

If a cold storm, or a very freezing temperature occurred 
at lambing time, these open sheds did not sufficiently exclude 



BARNS WITH OPEN SHEDS. 



213 



the cold; and they did not prevent the ewes going out of 
them to lamb, or from leading their new-born lambs out at 
very unseasonable times, to follow the movements of the flock. 




SHEEP BARN. 



No female animal is more attached to her young than the 
ewe, but none exhibits less providence in protecting it from 
any danger, except by setting it an example of running from 
those which terrify and demand flight.* If the ewe needed 



* Even then, if seriously frightened, she generally runs directly away from the 
danger without stopping for her lamb if it cannot keep up. She has not the remotest 
idea of sheltering it from cold by the warmth of her own person, or any apparent 
consciousness that anywhere, or under any circumstances, it is weaker or tenderer or 
more exposed to danger than herself. We read anecdotes of a very contrary tenor 
among sentimental writers, and naturalists who wish to enliven their narrations, or 
sustain some favorite theory. These anecdotes are very pretty — sometimes affecting; 
but unfortunately in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, untrue ! Jessie, for example, 
expatiates on the fact that the ewe with twins does not allow one of them to suck 
until the other is ready to share in the meal. Now every practical sheep farmer has 
been a thousand times provoked by seeing a ewe, followed by one strong, fat twin 
lamb which she allowed to fill itself at pleasure, moving restlessly aboutj without 
waiting for, or seeming to have any care for, its mate, which was born weaker and less 
able to follow — and which is being starved to death in consequence of its weakness. 
Even Mr. Youatt talks of special attachments between particular sheep, and of their 
" alternately sheltering each other from the biting blast and the suffocating drift." He 
quotes from the Shepherd's Calender the following statement: — "When a sheep 
becomes blind it is rarely abandoned to itself in this hapless and helpless state : some 
one of the flock attaches himself to it and, by bleating, calls it back from the precipice, 
and the lake, and the pool, and every kind of danger." (Youatt on Sheep, p. 375.) I 
have no doubt that the half wild breeds in the mountains of Scotland, and in other 
regions where they are left almost in a state of nature to obtain their food and take 
care of themselves, retain far more of their natural instincts than the more thoroughly 
domesticated sheep. They will band together to fight an enemy, and it is said the ewe 
will fight a fox or small dog in defence of her lamb. I never saw an instance of either, 
among the Merinos. I never saw one sheep render another any direct or intentional 
assistance of any kind unless the following are instances of it. There are a few rams 
which will not permit a stranger to catch out one of their ewes when they are 
together in the winter yard. I own such a ram now, and even his attendant has to 
act with great caution under such circumstances. Whether the precise object of the 
ram is to protect its associates, I am unable to say. The Merino, removed to moun- 
tains or great plains, and removed from the constant control and supervision of man, 
may acquire, or resume habits more necessary in such situations. 



214 SIIKEP BARNS OR STABLES 

assistance in lambing, or if the lamb required to be helped to the 
teat, it was difficult to catch her conveniently in an 02"»en shod. 

Siieep Barns or Stables. — For all the preceding 
reasons, baras or stables for the winter shelter of sheep, now 
receive universal preference in the Northern and Eastern 
States. These are generally constructed — and always should 
be — so that they can be closed as tightly as ordinary 
horse or cow-bams. But they require doors sufficient for 
ventilation and exposure to the sun in fine .weather, and for 
the ingress of a farm wagon to haul out manure. And by 
means of movable windows, or slides covering apertures in 
the walls, they should be capable of being thoroughly 
ventilated at any time, with the doors closed. 

When these close sheep barns first came into use, each 
was generally made large enough for seventy-five or one 
hundred sheep ; and they were scattered about the farm so as 
to be contiguous to the meadows from which they were to be 
filled with hay, and so the manure made in and about them 
would only require hauling a short distance. There was 
another argument in their favor. If a contagious or infectious 
disease broke out in one of the divisions of the flock, it did 
not necessarily extend to all ; and, theoretically speaking at 
least, the fewer the sheep which inhale the same local 
atmosphere the freer from impurities it must remain. 

But serious inconveniences were found to attend this 
system. It required almost a double outlay of materials and 
expense to build separate barns and prepare separate yards, 
arrangements for watering, etc., for each flock. These 
scattered barns required the farmer or his shepherd to wade 
wearily two or three times a day, mounted or on foot, for 
long distances through sheets of snow which the winds 
generally rendered pathless ; and oftentimes, and even for 
days together, to do this amidst blinding snow-storms or 
the most terrible extremes of cold. Much shoveling was 
constantly necessary to give the sheep access to water, etc. 
If the supply of hay happened to fail at one of these distant 
barns, it was often more trouble to get it there, than it would 
have been to cart all the hay consumed in the barn to a central 
one near the farm-house, and haul all the manure made from 
it back. These barns were inconvenient at lambing time, 
because the constant attention which one man could give to 
all the breeding ewes at once, if in the same or contiguous 
buildings, was necessarily divided up between the several 
scattered parcels of them, leaving but little time, compara- 



SHEEP BARKS OR STABLES. 215 

tively, for each. And, finally, the farmer was not so apt, 
under such circumstances, to see all his sheep daily with his 
own eyes y nor was either he or his shepherd half so prone to 
turn out in the night to take care of the sheep or the lamhs, 
provided a change of weather, the rising of a gale, or any 
other circumstance rendered it expedient. * 

It is now usual to construct the sheep, like the horse and 
cow harns, near the farm-house. When the farm flock does 
not exceed about three hundred, it is often wintered in a 
single barn which has separate apartments, holding from 
seventy-five to one hundred sheep each ; and each apartment 
has a separate outside yard. The upper story of these barns 
is devoted to hay for the sheep : the under one is eight feet 
high, and floored on the bottom if it is necessary to insure 
perfect dryness. 

It is common to take advantage of a slope in the ground, 
and by means of a small amount of excavation, so to place the 
sheep barn that while the doors of the basement story open on 
a lower level, those of the second story open upon a higher 
level, or on the surface of an ascent, on the opposite side — so 
that hay can be drawn on wagons into the upper story. This 
is something of a convenience, and was a great one before the 
invention of the horse pitch-fork. The side of the lower story 
which supports the bank of earth resting against it, is generally 
composed of stone -wall — this being necessary both for 
strength and durability. In various states of the atmosphere 
this wall exudes moisture, or, as it is termed, "sweats," — 
diffusing dampness through the apartment. Unless that 
apartment is far higher, more spacious and better ventilated 
than would otherwise be necessary, this dampness is unques- 
tionably prejudicial to the health of sheep. The better course 
would be, where such a barn is thought desirable, to build it 
entirely independent of the bank-wall and connect them with 
a short bridge. 

The usual way of dividing the lower story of the sheep 
barn into apartments for different parcels of sheep, is simply 

* For example, I remember some twenty or twenty-five years since to have 
had several hundred ewes with young lambs left out on a warm and beautiful night 
in early May, in four adjoining fields. A little after midnight I was wakened by the 
first howl of a north-easter, which was accompanied by a blinding snow-storm. 
This was a case to say come instead of go. In fifteen minutes three of us, with our 
lanterns, had started for the fields about half a mile off: and we worked on until 9 
o'clock the next morning in getting in the sheep, and half frozen lambs, and in resus- 
citating the latter. We probably saved a hundred lambs which would have perished 
before morning. Had these sheep been out in the same number of parcels half a mile 
from each other — some of them a mile and a half from my house — what chance 
would there have been to save the great body of the younger lambs ? 



216 SHEEP IJARNS. 

by placing feeding racks across them — so that in reality the 
sheep arc all in one room. This mode is a material saving 
both of space and expense; and it is highly convenient, 
inasmuch as the partitions can bo changed in a moment to 
adapt them to any change which it is desirable to make in the 
relative number of sheep in the different apartments. But it 
must be obvious that any considerable number of sheep when 
thus kept breathing the same indoor atmosphere, require that 
the means of ventilation be abundant and most thoroughly 
kept in operation. Indeed, I should prefer, as a matter of 
prudence, not to place more than one hundred and fifty sheep 
in the same room., though divided into smaller flocks on the 
floor. With different rooms, and with independent means of 
communicating Avith the external air, four hundred or six 
hundred could be kept, perhaps, just as safely, under the same 
roof, unless during the prevalence of infectious or epizootic 
diseases. But who can be certain that these will remain 
absent ? On the whole, such large and close aggregations of 
sheep are inexpedient. 

The room required for a given number of Merino breeding 
ewes in a barn is, for Paulars, about ten and two-thirds square 
feet of area on the floor each; in other words, au apartment 
twenty by forty feet in the clear will accommodate seventy-five, 
so that they can all eat at the same time at single or wall racks 
placed round the entire walls, except before the doors. A 
room forty feet square will accommodate one hundred and fifty, 
but it requires forty feet of double rack* to be placed in the 
area inside of the wall racks. Larger Merino, or English ewes, 
require more room in proportion to their size. Some of the last 
would probably require nearly twice as much room per head. 

A sheep barn should open on the side least exposed to the 
prevailing winter winds ; and its yards should be placed as 
much as practicable under its shelter. Some persons build 
these barns in the form of an L, to break off the winds from 
different quarters ; others make a high stone wall or board 
fence a substitute for one of the limbs of the L. The yards 
are inconveniently narrow if restricted to the breadth of the 
inside apartments ; and should, therefore, be widened accord- 
ing to circumstances. 

The following ground plan is intentionally confined to a 

* I hero use the word single or wall-rack to signify one made to set against a 
wall, which can only be eaten from on one side — the word double rack, to signify one 
which can be eaten from on both sides, so that forty feet of one is equivalent to eighty 
feet of the other. 



SHEEP BARNS AND YARDS. 



217 



mere outline of a very simple and compact sheep barn, which 
is under a single roof, has no waste space, and makes the 
utmost use of all its materials. Three different modes of 
watering are presented, either of which is sufficient, and the 
choice between them should depend upon circumstances. 




J£ 



izo. 
PLAN OF SHEEP BARN AND YARDS. 

a, a, a, a, Apartments or stables in sheep barn, 20 by 40 feet. The central parti- 
tion a close one, with single racks on each side. The other two partitions composed 
of double racks. Single racks round all the outside walls except at doors. 

b, b, Watering tubs, when water is brought into barn in pipes. 

c, c, c, A door in central partition and gates in the other two partitions. 

d, d, d, d, Sheep yards, 30 feet wide ; the two outside ones 60 feet long ; the two 
inside ones 52 feet long : thus arranged to allow the four flocks of sheep to drink from 
the troughs of one pump-house at e. 

e, Pump-house and trough's for four yards, if water is not carried into the 
barn at 6, b. 

/, f, Pump-houses and troughs, each accommodating two yards, provided neither 
of preceding plans of watering are available or desirable. 

Sheep barns are often connected with other farm buildings, 
snch as horse stables, wool rooms, ram stables, etc. The 
following is the plan of Mr. Hammond's sheep establishment.* 
His house, wood-sheds, etc., stand south of the barns, so that 
they principally break the force of the wind from that 
quarter. 



barn. 



* Except a slight change in respect to wool room, which stands detached from 



10 



218 



SHEEP ESTABLISHMENT. 




PLAN OF A SHEEP ESTABLISHMENT. 

a. Horse barn. 

b. />. b. Sheep stables, each divided into two apartments by racks across them in 
the middle. 

c. Ram stable, divided into two apartments. 
(/, Hay barn. 

e. Wool room. 

/■> /i /i /< /. /. Yards before each apartment of sheep stables. 

(/■, <7i S7. Watering places, each supplying two apartments. 

Whatever plan is adopted for a sheep barn, certain tilings 
are indispensable. It should stand on and be surrounded by 



CLEANING OUT STABLES IN WINTER. 219 

dry ground; occupy an elevated, airy position, but one as 
little exposed as possible to prevailing winter winds ; be of 
easy access to water ; possess ample capacity for the number 
of sheep to be kept in it ; and have means of thorough ventila- 
tion in every state of the atmosphere. The hay floor above 
the sheep stables should be matched or battened, so as 
entirely to prevent dust, hay seeds, or chaff from sifting 
through on the sheep. It should have pens in the sheep 
stables to throw the hay in from above when feeding, so that 
it cannot fall on the backs of the sheep or be run over by 
them.* Every gate, door, fastening and fixture about it 
should be strong and secure. 

Cleaning Out Stables in Winter. — It is rather the 
prevailing custom among Northern flock-masters not to clean 
out their sheep stables in winter, but merely to cover the 
manure occasionally with fresh litter. This is unquestionably 
bad practice, in two particulars. It certainly prevents making 
anything like the amount of manure which could be formed 
by mixing the dung and urine of the sheep with an amount of 
litter which would half fill the sheep stable, if suffered to accu- 
mulate there throughout the winter. And there can be no 
reasonable doubt that a deep bed of manure, which, except 
during severely cold weather, is constantly heating, evolving 
gases, and filling the apartment with a warm steam and the odor 
of fermenting dung, and which, after a decided thaw of a few- 
days, positively produces an offensive stench, can not form a 
very healthy lair for sheep. It is rather the prevailing opinion 
now among the best flock-masters, that the increased practice 
among Merino sheep of pulling their own and each other's 
wool in the winter, is occasioned by an irritation of the skin 
caused by lying on these beds of heating manure. Unstabled 
flocks do not, so far as I have observed, thus become addicted 
to " wool-biting." Stables should be cleaned out three times 
during each winter, say in the early part of Januaiy, the 
latter part of February, and in April. And in the interme- 
diate periods, it is an excellent practice always to strew the 
manure on the floor with plaster (gypsum,) prior to covering 
it with fresh straw. This absorbs the escaping gases, and 
thus not only preserves the purity of the atmosphere, but 
vastly enhances the value of the manure. 



* Some, instead of this, shut the sheep out of doors when filling the racks. But 
the state of the weather, as, for instance, in a winter rain-storm, or the situation of 
the sheep — say when they are lambing — sometimes renders this highly improper. 



220 YARDS — LITTERING YARDS. 

Yards. — I by no means wish to be understood to express 
tlic opinion that sheep yards should, for any purpose of utility, 
be restricted to the narrow dimensions of those given in the 
] ire-ceding ground plans. I rather consider those the least 
dimensions which can be regarded as proper ; and if 
convenience equally admitted of it, I would prefer to have 
them much more spacious. They should be constructed on 
dry, firm, thoroughly drained ground ; and a gravelly soil 
rapidly permeable by surface water, and which quickly dries, 
is much preferable to a clayey, tenacious soil, or a peaty or 
mucky one which retains moisture. All the yards ought to 
have separate access to water, and, if practicable, separate 
access to different fields. This last fact renders the plan of 
yards given with the first of the preceding ground plans 
objectionable, unless the two middle flocks can be let into 
different fields through doors in the opposite side of the barn. 
That plan merely saves the digging of one well ; and I should 
much prefer to dig the two wells (at /*,/*,) and have the yards 
of equal length, and each possessed of separate and indepen- 
dent egress and ingress.* 

Littering Yards. — Strawing or otherwise littering sheep 
yards in winter in the most thorough manner, is a matter of 
prime importance. If sheep are compelled to stand or move 
about in mud or water whenever out of doors, the most 
liberal feeding and good management in every other partic- 
ular, will hardly preserve them in the best condition. They 
should have a comparatively dry out-door bed to stand on in 
wet weather, and a warm one in cold weather. The sheep — 
or at least all the upland breeds of sheep — find one of the 
worst enemies of their health and thrift in habitual wetness 
under foot. Muddy yards prevent sheep from moving about 
out of doors and spending a portion of the time in the sun 
and fresh air, in pleasant winter weather ; promote fouls ; 
render hoof rot incurable ; and cause lameness and annoyance 
to sheep which have sound feet, when a sudden freeze converts 
the small pellets of mud which adhere to the hairs in the 
forward part of the cleft of the foot, into pellets of stone. A 
little straw is excellent feed for sheep. If it is scattered over 



* By gates opposite each other on the eight-feet passage — one of them opening 
entirely across it on the side of the outer yards— a separate passage could be obtained ; 
but this would not be very convenient, and when the passage was thus closed, the 
sheep in the outside yards would not have access to the water trough at e. 



CONFINEMENT TO YAKDS AND DRY FEED. 221 

the yard they will " pick it over," eating the best parts, and 
leaving enough to keep the littering constantly renewed. 

Confining Sheep in Yards and to Dry Feed. — A 
decided majority of Northern flock-masters prefer the strict 
confinement of sheep to their yards during the entire winter. 
They contend that the slightest taste of the pasture during 
thawing weather takes oft* the appetite from hay, and that 
sheep are equally healthy and even more thrifty under such 
confinement. I dissent from both conclusions. 

If sheep, long kept from the grass by deep snows, are 
suddenly admitted to it in consequence of a winter thaw, and 
if they are allowed wholly to subsist on it for a number of 
days — as long as the thaw continues — they unquestionably 
lose condition and strength on herbage which has been 
rendered innutritious by age and by repeated freezings and 
tha wings. Thin breeding ewes and young sheep sometimes 
suffer materially in this way, particularly in the critical month of 
March. When returned to their confinement and to dry feed, 
they have no vigorous appetite for it, and consequently do not 
recover from their debility. In certain unfavorable seasons 
they pine, and eventually perish, if not solely from this cause, 
yet with the fatal termination accelerated and rendered more 
inevitable by it. Stronger sheep recover from its effects — 
but of course any check in the thrift of a flock results in a 
proportionable loss in some of its products. 

Having habitually and regularly fed turnij)s daily to 
breeding ewes, young ewes, rams, and wethers, (when I have 
kept the latter,) for the last fifteen or twenty winters, I am 
enabled to affirm, of my own positive knowledge, that green 
feed, administered in proper quantities, does not in the least 
diminish the appetite for dry feed ; and that proper green 
feed, so far from weakening, adds to the condition and 
strength of sheep, besides producing other good effects which 
will be adverted, to when I speak of the relative value and 
influence of winter feeds. The experience of the great body 
of English fanners fully sustains these conclusions. The ju'ac- 
tice of wintering sheep exclusively on dry feed — say on 
meadow hay and straw, with or without grain or pulse — is 
substantially unknown in the arable districts of England. 
For sheep of every class not to receive green feed daily 
would there be an exception ; and fattening sheep receive it 
in abundant quantities. 

The winter grass in our own Northern States, though 



222 CONFINEMENT TO YARDS AND DIIY FEED. 

comparatively innutritions, is, in the absence of better green 
feed, a healthful change in the diet of pregnant ewes. It 
keeps down the tendency to costiveness, habitual to females 
in that situation, and in conjunction with that exercise which 
is required to obtain it, renders the system less subject to the 
plethora, which is also natural in pregnancy, but which is 
greatly fostered by rich food and inactivity. But to attain 
these objects, the sheep should be let out an hour a day, instead 
of the entire day, in warm winter weather. It should obtain 
a small portion of its feed, instead of the whole of it, from 
the lields. 

Sheep, like other animals, spontaneously diminish their 
amount of exercise as they advance in pregnancy, and it 
thence may very properly be inferred that they require less 
of it than at other times to preserve a healthy condition. It 
is also undoubtedly true that excessive or fatiguing exercise 
is positively injurious at this period. But if we can trust to 
established physiological principles, or to the teachings of 
analogy, the sudden change produced in the habits of an 
active, roving animal, by rigid confinement from the com- 
mencement to the close of gestation — accompanied by a 
complete alteration of diet — must be attended by baneful 
consequences. Are we told that pregnant sheep thrive and 
grow fat in this confinement — fatter than when they are let 
out on the fields ? This is true, and it is one of the dangerous 
incidents of the system. Pregnancy of itself favors the 
taking on of fiesh ; and when this tendency is aided by 
concentrated and highly nutritious food, and by entire 
inactivity, the condition established is rather that of plet/iora 
— high condition attended by an unnatural excess of blood — 
than of the healthy fleshiness which comes with natural feed 
and exercise. 

We know that the sow which is confined closely to the 
pen and fed to fatness on wholly artificial food never farrows 
in safety. We should esteem that farmer beside himself who 
confined his mares and cows to little dry yards and to dry 
feed during the whole term of pregnancy. The most 
celebrated practitioners of medicine allow no such changes of 
habit among their human subjects during this period. I 
can not do better than to quote the sensible remarks of Dr. 
Bedford on this subject. He says : 

"Allow me here to remark that, as a general principle, if 
the pregnant female observe strictly the ordinances which na- 
ture has inculcated for her guidance ; if, for example, she take 



EXERCISE AND GREEN FEED NECESSARY. 223 

her regular exercise in the open air, avoid, as far as may be, 
all causes of mental or physical excitement, employ herself in 
the ordinary duties of her household, partake of nutritious 
and digestible food, repudiate luxurious habits, * * * * 
if, I say, she will steadfastly adhere to these common sense 
rules, the reward she will receive at the hands of nature will 
be general good health during her gestation, and an auspicious 
delivery, resulting in what will most gladden and amply repay 
her for her discretion — the birth of a healthy child. * * 
But if in lieu of these observances, the pregnant woman 
pursue a life of luxury, 'eat, drink, and become merry,' 
neglect to take her daily exercise, and prefer her lounge — 
the case is entirely reversed, etc.*" 

I might swell quotations of the same tenor to a volume: 
for such are the settled opinions of the whole medical 
profession. 

Am I asked where the injurious effects of the close 
confinement of sheep to small yards and dry feed have 
manifested themselves ? I suspect that they have manifested 
themselves in the prevailing and destructive loss of lambs 
which annually takes place in our flocks. Why is it that with 
better shelters and conveniences of every kind, and with 
greatly increased skill as shepherds, the body of American 
Merino flock -masters do not raise a larger per centage of 
lambs than they did twenty or thirty years ago? I have 
already expressed the opinion that eighty per cent, is still as 
high as the general average, taking a series of years together, 
though I know many small flocks in which 90, 95, and 
occasionally 100 per cent, are raised. The American Merino 
is a much larger and better formed animal than it was twenty 
years since, and though it has undoubtedly lost something of 
that locomotive power and energy which it possessed when it 
was compelled to make a journey of eight hundred miles each 
year in Spain, it remains a far hardier animal than the 
improved English sheep, and it is less subject to parturient 
difficulties and diseases.f Yet the English sheep rear from 

* Principles and Practice of Obstetrics, by Gunning S. Bedford, etc., etc. New 
York, 18G2, p. 131. 

t Mr. Youatt enumerates among the defects of the Merino, " partly attributable 
to the breed, but more to the improper mode of treatment to which they are occasion- 
ally subjected" in Spain, " a tendency to abortion or to barrenness ; a difficulty of 
yeaning ; a paucity of milk, and a too frequent neglect of their young." (Youatt, 
p. 149.) The tendency to abortion is not greater in the American Merino than in the 
English ewe : the former does not so often experience difficulty in yeaning : and it is 
decidedly less subject to parturient fevers. It has, however, a greater ''paucity of 
milk," a greater tendency to barrenness, in the sense in which I presume Mr. Youatt 



224 CONFINEMENT TO YARDS AND DRY FEED. 

thirty to fifty per cent, more lambs ! Our English flocks, it is 
true, are usually small ; and among the established natural 
characteristics of the ewes are those of bringing forth twin 
lambs and having a sufficient supply of milk to raise them 
properly. But they also, so far as my knowledge extends, 
lose fewer lambs. How is this to be accounted for ? If the 
Merino is a hardier animal than the mutton sheep, its lamb, 
it would seem, ought also to be hardier. And so I have no 
doubt it is, if it is born in a perfectly well developed, normal 
condition, and if it gets anything like a corresponding supply 
of milk. It is not among such that the annual losses among 
our lambs occur. Those which perish are generally undersized 
and feeble, or else they do not obtain sufficient support from 
their dams. It is these causes and failure to take the ram 
which keeps the rate of increase so low in Merino flocks. 

This comparative want of prolificacy is the weak point — 
now really the only one for the purposes for which they 
are grown — of our American Merino sheep. Yet no other 
point has received more of the care of those breeders who 
have been so successful in improving them in every other 
particular. Their comparative failure is occasioned by no 
obstacle inherent in the breed, as I could show from a 
variety of considerations and direct proofs, did space admit 
of it. If it can be shown that there is a radical error in 
our modes of management — that we habitually compel the 
pregnant ewe to violate " the ordinances which nature has 
inculcated for her guidance" — need we go further to find 
the causes of that failure ? Can we wonder that lambs are 
born imperfectly developed when ewes are rigidly confined 
for five or five and a half months — through the entire term 
of pregnancy — in little yards ; and even then fed almost 
invariably within doors — so that they have no inducements 
left to take the least degree of exercise — and so that more 
than four -fifths of the whole time they are inhaling the 
atmosphere of a stable, without going out into the fresh air and 
sunlight ? Can we wonder that an animal which obtains its en- 
tire summer subsistence from green vegetation does not secrete 
milk abundantly, and can not be bred to secrete it abundantly, 
when, from the first to the last day of gestation, it is unnat- 
urally restricted to exclusively dry food ? And when young 
and not fully matured ewes, or old and decaying ones, or 

here uses the word, i. e., it oftener fails to take the ram. Literal barrenness, or a 
want of the power of conception, is almost unknown in the Merino ; and its failure 
to take the ram, generally, springs from incidental and not necessary causes. 



THE CAUSE OF "WANT OF PROLIFICACY. 225 

poor ones of any age — the classes which furnish the principal 
portion of those which do not breed* — are suddenly subjected 
to the commencement of the preceding changes, about con- 
temporaneously with that great fall of temperature which 
usually attends the setting in of winter, can we wonder that 
the depressing effects of all these combined causes should 
prevent cohabitation ? It has already been stated as a well 
established fact, that not only low condition, but anything 
which, for the time being, lowers the condition, tends 
to produce that effect. Even ewes in the most suitable 
situation for coupling, viz., in good, plump, store order and 
improving in condition, at the time, often wholly cease to take 
the ram in severely cold weather. And as winter advances, 
the heats of the Merino ewe are less to be relied upon. 

Many American Merino sheep breeders, on reading this, 
-will say: — "I have used small yards, fed generally in the 
stables, fed nothing but dry feed in winter, for ten, fifteen, 
or twenty years, and I have always had good success 
in lamb raising." But what proportion of these breeders, 
whose breeding ewes count up even to one hundred 
and fifty, would be able to show from contemporaneous 
records, or would dare to affirm as a matter of positive 
recollection, that they had on the average, for any consid- 
erable term of years, raised either 100 per cent, of lambs, or 
any very close approximation to that number? Yet can lamb 
raising be considered successfully carried on, or a breed to 
have reached its highest attainable standard in this particular, 
when a selected flock of only one hundred and fifty breeding 
ewes can not be made annually to raise their own number 
of lambs ? 

There is a material difference in the prolificacy of the 
English and Merino sheep — first produced, in all probability, 
by the different modes of artificial treatment to which they were 
subjected f — but long since established as permanent and 
hereditary characteristics of the different breeds : but I do 
not entertain a shadow of doubt that were the most prolific 
English families of sheep subjected to the same winter treat- 

* If there are " dry ewes " in the flock, i. e., those which raised no lambs the 
preceding year, and they are allowed to become very fat, they too, are very apt not to 
become, as the English Shepherds say, "inlambed." 

t The Spanish sheep were subjected neither to confinement nor dry feed, in the 
winter, in Spain — but there being no object to increase their number they were not 
allowed to raise over 50 per cent, of lambs; and consequently prolificacy was not culti- 
vated. While their constant migrations gave them extraordinary general vigor, they 
did not tend to develop their milking properties. 

10* 



220 CONFINEMENT TO YAKDS AND DRY FEED. 

inent which we give to the bulk of our American Merinos, 
half a dozen generations would find them seriously degene- 
rated in prolificacy. 

Occasionally there comes a year when double, treble and 
even quadruple the usual number of our lambs perish. The 
causes and symptoms appear to be the usual ones, but 
aggravated and extended by an epizootic influence. I have 
(at page 154,) described the appearance of the lambs, and the 
singular degree of mortality which prevailed among them in 
the spring of 1862. An extraordinarily deep snow fell in the 
early part of winter, and it was replenished about as fast as it 
wasted away until the opening of spring. It was remarked 
that most of the breeding ewes clung very closely to their 
stables — doing little more than rising to eat and then lying 
down again. Those flocks most accustomed to close yarding 
in many instances did not tread down the snow a dozen yards 
from their stables during the winter. But the weather was 
steady and cold, so that they continued to eat well, and the 
hay of that season was generally of good quality. Thus their 
inactivity increased their fleshiness, and their fleshiness 
re-acted and increased their inactivity. They generally 
reached the spring in uncommonly high order. They 
appeared to be well — but yet there were unmistakable 
symptoms of a plethoric habit in the best fed flocks : and it 
was in the best fed flocks that the loss of lambs was, as a 
general thing, far most severe. 

Putting all these facts together, I have been disposed to 
trace this mortality in lambs to the condition of the mothers 
— the unfavorable condition being aided by an epizootic 
influence.* Is it asked why a proportionable degree of 
mortality does not habitually attend all unusual confinement 
of breeding ewes, and why, in 1862, it did not extend its 
destructive ravages to Vermont, where the snow was equally 
deep and laid still longer on the ground? When it is 
explained why the directly exciting causes of various destruc- 
tive diseases among human beings, lie comparatively dormant 

* Having, from inability to fix upon any descriptive or definite name, termed 
this imperfect state of the lambs of 1S62, which resulted in such wide spread death, 
" the lamb epizootic of 18G2," (in some articles which I published on the subject in 
the Country Gentleman,) several writers appeared to think that I intended to charac- 
terise it as a contagions, or infectious disease. An epidemic, or epidemy, is defined in 
Dunglison's Medical Dictionary to be "a disease which attacks at the same lime a 
number of individuals, and which is depending upon some particular constiliilio n, / is. 
or condition of the atmosphere, with which we are utterly ignorant." And he defines 
epizootia (epizootic) to be " a disease which reigns among animals — corresponding 
in the veterinary art to epidemy in medicine." This correction is made simply to 
prevent similar misconceptions in regard to the use of the word in this work. 



OVER FEEDING AND WANT OE EXERCISE. 227 

for years in a particular region — producing only sporadic or 
separate cases ; why, in other yeai's, when all the proximate 
causes appear to be the same, some one of those diseases 
assumes an endemic or epidemic form, desolating neighbor- 
hoods or provinces ; and, finally, why, at the height of its 
fury, it passes round and spares this household or that, or this 
neighborhood or that, and frequently leaves as well defined 
margins as the track of a tornado, although the population 
was as dense without as within its track; — when, I say, these 
anomalies are explained, Ave shall be able to explain the 
one under consideration. And let it be remembered that 
the same anomalous facts will continue to exist, to stand 
as much in the way of the true as of a false theory of 
explanation. 

I am not tenacious for the acceptance of this explanation. 
I merely offer it as the most probable one within my 
knowledge. Better observed facts may hereafter throw more 
light on the subject. 

I do not wish to be understood that restriction to dry feed 
is necessary to produce that condition of the ewe which I 
have assumed to be so prejudicial to the offspring. On the 
contrary, I think it would be produced, though hardly so 
readily or to so dangerous an extent, by an over-supply of 
good, green feed, attended with the same other unhealthy 
auxiliaries. It is the high condition, the excess of blood, the 
excited vascular system ready to assume or produce inflam- 
matory action, which produce or co-operate with the morbid 
tendency to non-development in the foetus. Indeed, high 
condition alone, may, to some extent, offer a mechanical ob- 
struction to its development. The internal fat of the dam 
may so far obstruct the full distension of the womb that the 
foetus can not grow to its full size anterior to birth. 

I urge letting out breeding ewes on the fields for a limited 
time each day, because no animal more intensely craves a 
portion of green food in the winter ; and I consider nature or 
instinct a first-rate judge of its own wants : because the small 
portion of green feed obtained from the fields can exert no 
injurious influence whatever in any direction, while it prevents' 
the costiveness peculiarly incidental to pregnancy, and by 
keeping the bowels in an open and regular state, has a strong 
tendency to avert all unhealthy action or agencies ; because 
traveling about and digging in the snow for green feed affords 
a most necessary and healthful exercise ; and, finally, because 
a neglect "of these ordinances which nature has inculcated" 



228 MODES OF INSURING EXERCISE. 

for the guidance of the pregnant ewe, has been followed by 
wide -spread disaster, under circumstances which at least 
give much color to the hypothesis that they are connected 
together as cause and effect. 

It by no means follows from anything which has been said, 
that sheep require a very extensive winter range on grass. I 
should decidedly object to their being allowed to feed down 
all the grass lands on the farm at this period of the year, 
and particularly the meadows. 

A few moderate-sized old seeded pastures about the sheep 
barn, with a good amount of grass left on them, in the 
fall, would answer every purpose ; for the sheep with its 
tinted teeth will not only take the grass but some portion of 
its very roots. It wants but little each day, and the harder it 
works to obtain it the better it is. 

Those who raise turnips for the sheep must obtain exercise 
for them in some other way. A stack to feed from at noon 
in fine weather, a quarter of a mile from the sheep barn, is an 
excellent arrangement ; and who does not recollect the old- 
fashioned, lively and merry scene of hauling out hay on an 
ox-sled far from the dirty farm yard — the great oxen 
hurrying forward as if satisfied some frolic was going on — 
the feeder tossing the fragrant flakes right and left — each 
succeeding flock pursuing with a Babel of cries — some of the 
young ones bounding and kicking their heels into the air as 
if greatly enjoying their fine run over the snow ! 

I made it a rule in entering upon the writing of this book, 
to look little after authorities where I believed the facts were 
established by my own observations ; but the necessity of 
winter exercise for sheep seems to be a much controverted 
question in this country, and therefore I have largely 
consulted the best European writers on the subject. I have 
thus far been unable to find one who mentions the subject at 
all, without distinctly insisting on the necessity of exercise ; 
and when the destructive lamb epizootic of 1862 was termi- 
nating its ravages, I addressed letters to a number of the 
oldest and soundest breeders in our country, describing the 
disease as I saw it, and asking their opinions as to it origin. 
To no one did I suggest my oavu theory of that origin. In 
every instance, I believe, the want of exercise Avas put forward 
as either the leading cause, or as a cause second to no other 
in its effects. Several also stated that they thought the 
sheep " had been kept too long from the ground." 



CHAPTER XX. 

WINTEK MANAGEMENT - CONTINUED. 

HAY BACKS WATER FOE SHEEP IN WINTER AMOUNT 

OF FOOD CONSUMED BY SHEEP IN WINTER VALUE OF 

DIFFERENT FODDERS NUTRITIVE EQUIVALENTS MIXED 

FEEDS FATTENING SHEEP IN WINTER REGULARITY IN 

FEEDING. 

Hay Racks. — A great variety of racks for sheep have 
been introduced into use, but for double and portable ones 
for ordinary purposes, those of the form exhibited in the 
annexed cut are generally preferred. The corner posts are 2 
_^__^^^_^^_^_^_^_^_^ by 1\ or 3 inches in 
^j^J-|l|^tJ!H^i;^^ size, and are 2 feet 8 or 
jjsgjgg i l 10 inches long — some- 

times 3 feet, where the 
racks are to be used as 
jwrtitions. The side 
and end boards are an 

SLATTED BOS BACK. . n . . - 

inch thick, the upper 
ones six and the lower ones nine inches wide. The perpen- 
dicular slats are three-fourths of an inch thick, seven inches 
wide and seven inches apart, fastened to their places by 
wrought and well clenched nails. Each slat requires four 
nails, instead of two as represented in cut. The slats are 
highly useful in keeping in hay, but their principal object is 
to prevent the sheep from crowding. They give every sheep 
fourteen inches at the rack while eating. This is a liberal 
allowance for the Merino ; but the English sheep requires 
more room. The ordinary breadth of the rack is two and a 
half feet, and the length depends upon circumstances. Those 
intended to be moved often are usually made ten feet long. 
They should be so light that a man standing inside of one of 
them can readily carry it about. 

Single or wall racks to be used against the walls of stables 
and other places where the sheep can approach them but on 




230 



HAY BACKS, ETC. 



one side, are often constructed like one side of the box rack 
:m<l attached to the walls by stay-laths. Some arrange them 
so that they can be raised as the manure accumulates; but 
there is no need of this if they are made with the bottom 
boards a foot instead of nine inches wide, and if the manure 
is cleaned out as often as it should be. 

But a far neater and more convenient wall rack, having 
troughs also connected with it, was invented by Mr. Virtulan 
Rich, of Richville, Vermont. * The following cut, from a 
drawing kindly furnished me by that gentleman, gives an 
easily understood general view of it : 




WALL RACK AND TROUGH. 

a, Plank 2 inches thick and 9 inches wide, placed 20 inches from wall («,) to form 
bottom rail of outside rack. 

b, Scantling 3 by 3 inches, forming top rail of outside rack. 

c, Bottom of trough, being a board placed on floor, or if there is no floor, on 
scantling to raise it sufficiently from ground. 

d, Board five inches wide, to support the board 4 inches wide, which forms 
bottom of the inside rack (/.) These would be better made of plank. Bottom of 
inside rack should be (> inches above bottom of trough. 

e, Outside wall of barn or stable. 

/, Inside rack hung with hinges to bottom board. It is made by nailing slats IX 
inches wide, 3 inches apart, on upper and lower rails, which are about VA by 2 inches 
in diameter. 

ff, Slats to outside rack 7 inches wide and 7 inches apart. 

h, Slanting board, from bottom of inside rack to bottom of trough and forming 
back side of trough. 

The end-views of the same rack (on next page) render the 
details of its construction a little more apparent. The left 
hand cut shows the inside rack (/,) in its place as when tilled 
with hay. In the right hand cut, it is turned up or thrown 



* I have previously, in this volume, named the Messrs. Rich as of Shoreham. 
This is the name of the /own in .vhich they reside, and was until recently the name of 
their Post-Oflice. The latter is now Richville. 



HAY RACKS, ETC. 



231 



back on its hinges as when grain or roots are being put in the 
trough (c,) or the trough is being cleaned out. 

.The advantages of this rack are, 1, That it prevents 
crowding as well as the slatted box-rack ; 2, That it prevents 
sheep from thrusting their heads and necks into the hay, as 
they can do to some extent in the slatted box-rack, thereby 





END VIEW OP WALL RACK. 

getting dust, hay-seeds and chaff into their wool ; 3, That it 
almost entirely prevents the hay which is pulled from the 
inside rack from being dropped under foot and wasted ; * 4, 
That it combines the advantages of a good stationary feeding- 
trough with the rack ; 5, That the trough, apart from its 
ordinary uses, is found very convenient to keep hay-seed out 
of the manure when it is is desirable to do so, and to catch 
and save hay-seed for use. 

Water for Sheep in Winter. — Sheep, and particu- 
larly sheep fed with roots, will do very well in winter without 
water if they have a constant supply of clean snow ; but that 
supply can never be relied on. And when watered at a pump 
or stream a portion of the time, they (particularly pregnant 



* A considerable quantity is wasted from all slanting racks with small, close 
rounds (like the inside rack /, in the cut ;) and some is thus wasted even from the 
slatted box rack. A sheep on being jostled by another, steps back from the rack 
frequently dragging out quite a lock of hay, which is immediately trodden under foot 
and hardly ever picked up. 



232 WATER FOR SHEEP IN WINTER. 

ewes) suffer if again forced to depend exclusively on eating 
snow. Consequently, a regular supply of water throughout 
the winter should be regarded as indispensable. It becomes 
still more so, where sheep are housed and yarded. In winter 
climates cold enough frequently to congeal water, the most 
convenient arrangement, where it is practicable, is to bring 
it directly into the sheep barn, by means of underground 
pipes from a spring or dam of sufficient elevation to force it 
up into tubs. These should be placed in the middle 
partitions, (as seen in the two plans of sheep barns in 
the preceding Chapter,) so that each tub shall supply two 
flocks of sheep. If different tubs are supplied from the same 
spring, each must have a different pipe, or else the tubs must, 
be at different elevations, so that a waste pipe from the 
higher one will go up into the bottom of and fill the lower 
one. When the surplus water is finally discharged into the 
ground, it should be by a waste-pipe emptying into a deep, 
Avell-made drain, which will never become clogged. An 
accumulation of ice in a sheep stable, or any overflow of 
water into the bedding, would be a nuisance far more than 
overbalancing all the conveniences of indoor watering. The 
tubs should rise but a few inches above the floor, and should, 
if they have much depth, have well secured but movable covers 
to prevent sheep and lambs from falling into them — the covers 
having holes cut through them barely large enough to enable 
the sheep to drink.* 

Two plans for outdoor watering are given in the ground 
plan at page 217. As I have already stated, I decidedly 
prefer that which exhibits two wells and pump-houses (at/", 
/',) because free egress from all the yards, independently of 
each other, could thus be much more conveniently secured. 
Each well or cistern should be fitted with a pump of a 
construction which forces up water very rapidly, and which 
does not admit of its being frozen in the body of the pump, 
if some special precaution chances to be forgotten. Small 
pump houses, which can be shut tight and provided with 
proper conductors to the troughs, guard against numerous 
accidents to pumps, prevent ice accumulating inconveniently 
about them, and render it so comparatively comfortable to 
water sheep in very cold and blustering weather, that there is 

* As the tubs are constantly forced full of water the sheep need not even put its 
head through the cover to drink ; and elliptical holes through it 4>£ by 5 or 5>£ inches, 
lor the mere insertion of the nose, are all that is required. If the tub waters two 
apartments it should have two holes on each side. 



CONSUMPTION OF FOOD IN WINTER. 233 

much greater probability of its being properly attended to. 
Some persons place sheds over the troughs also, to prevent snow 
from accumulating about them, and to offer greater induce- 
ments to the sheep to visit them in stormy weather. The 
troughs are placed lengthwise with and under the fence (as 
at 6, in cut page 217,) or crosswise with the ends projecting 
(as at f,f, in same cut.) If the sheep are watered pretty 
early in the day, the water will generally be lowered so 
often by drinking that thick ice will not form over it, and 
the sheep will usually keep drinking holes open. But the 
shepherd should look to this ; and in severely cold weather he 
should water the flock two or three times a day, (so that all 
will be likely to drink once,) and then by withdrawing a plug 
in the bottom of the trough, let off the water into a drain 
underneath. 

A brook of sufficient volume and current not to freeze 
deeply, brought near to the sheep yards, is an admirable 
addition to a sheep farm, both in summer and winter ; and 
Avhen it can be had, no other mode of watering is necessary. 
The banks at the drinking places should be so sloped that 
there will be no difficulty in a number drinking at once, and 
no liability of a sheep being crowded off a high bank or into 
deep water ; and the approach to and bottom of the drinking 
place should be thoroughly gravelled. I should, however, 
consider such a brook bought quite too dearly, if the sheep 
were compelled to wade through it whenever they entered or 
left their yai*ds — even if the water did not usually exceed 
three or four inches in depth. Every approach to the yards, 
crossed by a stream, requires a bridge. 

Amount of Food Consumed by Sheep in Winter. — 
It is now generally estimated that, taking the average of 
winter weather in our Northern States,, American Merino and 
grade Merino sheep kept exclusively on hay, require about 
one pound of good hay, or its equivalent, per diem, for every 
30 lbs. of their own live weight — to be kept in that plump 
condition somewhat short of fatness, which is usually regarded 
as the most desirable one for store sheep. Mr. Spooner 
adopts the same rule in regard to the consumption of English 
sheep. * 

Value of Different Fodders. — In most of the Eastern 
and Southern counties of New York, in similar regions of 



* He says " sheep grown up take 3 1-3 per cent, of their weight in hay per day to 
keep in store condition." Spooner on Sheep p. 217. 



234 NUTRITIVE EQUIVALENTS. 

Pennsylvania and throughout New England — the grazing 
region proper of the older-settled Northern States — the 
favorite meadow hay for sheep is produced by sowing about 
three parts of timothy (JPhleum pratense) to one of red clover, 
(Trifdium pratense^) The first and second years, the clover 
is in excess, but after that it only appears in moderate quan- 
tities ; and in the meantime many spontaneous clovers and 
grasses come in, such as June or spear grass, {Poa pratensis,) 
white clover, {Trifolium repens,) red -top or herds -grass 
{Agrostis vulgaris) in moist places, and various others in minor 
quantities and in special situations, such as the rough-stalked 
meadow grass, {Poa trivialis,) rye or ray grass, {Loll inn, 
I a refine,) and several of the fescue grasses. For sheep, this 
collection of grasses and clover is cut down rather early and 
cured as bright as possible. Where meadows are not 
brought into a course of arable husbandry, and are only 
plowed at long intervals, no better hay could be obtained 
from the soil; and, indeed, better would hardly seem 
desirable. But those who have tested it, know that red 
clover cut early and cured bright is preferred by sheep, and 
will fatten them more. It is a prevailing impression, too, 
among clover growers, that it more specially conduces to the 
secretion of milk when fed to breeding ewes. 

Nutritive Equivalents. — But it is not economical in 
most situations, to winter sheep exclusively on any kind of hay. 
There are incidental products raised with other crops which 
are regarded as necessary in even that limited extent of mixed 
husbandry which is practiced on our sheep farms, such as 
corn-stalks, the straws of the different grains, pea-haulm, etc., 
which must be consumed in part by the sheep, or be wasted ; 
and there are other crops which, like turnips and beets, are, 
so far as they can properly be fed, vastly cheaper than 
hay. Moreover, a well-selected variety in food is better, 
other things being equal, than uniformity: because the 
different products furnish more of all the different substances 
which go to form wool and meat. It is, therefore, incumbent 
on the intelligent sheep farmer carefully to study both in 
theory and practice, the effect of each of the kinds of 
available food, separately or in combination, to produce these 
results. Agricultural Chemistry has made new and important 
disclosures in this particular; and though its theoretical 
deductions cannot be implicitly relied on, owing to excep- 
tional or incidental circumstances which have thus far eluded 



NUTRITIVE EQUIVALENTS. 



235 



detection, still they usually approximate sufficiently near to 
the truth to be of great value to the farmer. Before offering 
any comments on them, I will proceed to lay some of these 
before the reader, in connection with a very valuable table of 
experimental deductions. 



TABLE OF NUTRITIVE 


EQUIVALENTS 










Theoretical values according 


to 


Practical values, as estimated by direct feed- 
ing experiments, according to 




"5 

d 

bD 

a 

3 


2 
'2 

<v 


o 

s 




>> 

s 


A 


A 

a 

Cm 


% 
A 
03 


a 


S 


3 
a 
to 
a 




m 


6 

,3 
02 


s 

CS 

,3 




100 
75 
479 
383 
460 
426 
64 
676 


100 
77 
527 
445 
471 
433 


100 

ion 

200 
200 
193 
200 
165 


100 
90 

500 

200 

180 

360 

200 

300 

40t 

250 

200 

54 

54 

52 

6-1 

61 

71 

5E 

52 

9f 

4" 


100 
"156 

150 
150 
150 
150 

"250 

225 

150 

50 

48 


100 
90 
666 
190 
150 
450 
130 
300 
460 
300 
200 
73 
66 


100 
100 
350 
200 
200 
300 
150 
250 
250 
250 
200 
40 
40 


10O 
100 


100 


100 


100 


100 

90* 
442 
195 

"374 
153 
30S 
339 

"45 
45 










267 
200 
200 
233 




41m 

401) 




























201 

333 

27( 
200 






366 

300 

200 

30 

30 




391 

542 

330 

34 

34 


366 

306 

216 

30 

30 




382 
319 
23 
27 
70 
55 
65 
60 
58 
5E 
5C 
2C 


338 


380 
























59 




93 

"58 
58 
38 


"33 
39 
33 

27 


















53 

"Ei 

46 


76 
86 
71 
64 


50 
60 
50 
40 








35 
37 
33 
30 


54 

59 

"45 
105 










Rye, 








Wheat, .. 






















108 































* When blossom is completely developed. 

To this Mr. Rham adds the following as equivalents of 
100 pounds of " good hay : " — 102 lbs. latter-math hay ; 88 lbs. 
of clover hay made before the blossom expands ; 98 lbs. of 
clover of second crop ; 98 lbs. Lucerne hay ; 89 lbs. sanfoin 
hay; 91 lbs. tare hay; 146 lbs. of clover after the seed; 410 
lbs. of green clover; 457 lbs. of green vetches or tares; 
541 lbs. of cow cabbage leaves; 504 lbs. turnips; 50 lbs. vetches; 
167 lbs. of wheat, peas and oat chaff.* 

No one will understand that because a certain weight of 
one product is a nutritive equivalent for a certain weight of 
another, that each will necessarily answer as a substitute for 



* Rev. W. Rham*s statements are not made from his own experiments, but Mr. 
Spooner (from whom I borrow this column of the above table,) says they were trans- 
lated from the French by him, and are " the mean of the result of the experiments made 
by some of the most eminent agriculturists of Europe in the actual feeding of cattle." 



230 



PRODUCTS OF DIFFERENT FEEDS. 



the other in feeding. For example, taking the mean of the 
experimental results in the above table, 367f lbs. of rye straw 
contain as much nutriment as 100 lbs. of meadow hay. A 
Merino sheep weighing 90 pounds, daily consumes 3 pounds of 
hay : and to consume its equivalent in rye straw, it would 
have daily to masticate, digest, etc., a fraction over eleven 
pounds of it — a feat impracticable for a variety of reasons, 
and among others for the very obvious one that its stomachs 
could not be made to hold it, even though digestion should go 
on with twice its natural rapidity. 

The experiments made in feeding Saxon sheep in Silesia, 
by Reaumur, show in what manner the nutritive parts of 
certain ordinary vegetable products enter into the compo- 
sition of different animal products. 



Kinds op Food. 



Increased I Produced 
live weight of wool, 
animal. lbs. oz. 



Produced 

tallow, 
lbs. oz. 



Per cent, of 
nitrogen in 
such food 



1.000 lbs. 

1,000 " 

1,000 " 

l.ooo '• 

l.ooo " 

1.000 " 

1,000 " 

1,000 " 

1.000 " 

1.000 " 

1,000 " 

1,000 " 

1,000 " 



raw potatoes with salt 
" " without salt 

raw mangel wurzel. . 

peas 

wheat 

rye with salt 

rye without salt 

oats 

barley 

buckwheat 

good hay 

hay with straw, with- 
out other fodder 

whisky still grains or 
wash 



46K 

44 

38 
134 
155 

90 

83 
146 
136 
120 

58 

31 
35 



6 


8% 


12 


5.^ 


6 


8 


10 


U>i 


5 


3>£ 


6 


M 


14 


n 


41 


6 


18 


13,^ 


59 


9 


13 


UH 


35 


11 M 


12 


10K 


33 


8% 


9 


12 


40 


8 


11 


an 


m 


1 


10 


4K 


33 


8 


7 


Wi 


12 


14 


15 


8 


6 


11 


6 


l 


4 






0.36 
0.36 
0.21 
3.83 
2.09 
2.00 
2.00 
1.70 
1.00 
2.10 
1.15 



At first view, there is a degree of incongruity between the 
theoretical and practical results exhibited in the first of the 
above tables, which, without due reflection, might materially 
tend to impair our confidence in the accuracy of the tests 
which are relied on in agricultural chemistry. But a further 
glance discloses the fact that these results do not differ more 
widely from each other than those obtained by practical 
experiments. How are we to explain these latter incongrui- 
ties ? If the results * of actual experiments — experiments, 
too, conducted with care by men possessing unusual ability 
and means to do so understandingly and accurately — differ 
so widely, what then? Are we thence to conclude that 
experience is worth nothing, or that nature acts without 
any uniform laws? — that every agricultural result, whether 
successful or unsuccessful, depends upon chance — or that 
fatality which is expressed in the delusive and detestable 
word "luck?" 



VALUE OF DIFFERENT FEEDS. 237 

The explanation of such differences is, in truth, easy- 
enough. The experiments were tried in different soils and 
seasons. Variations in the latter, every one knows, highly 
affect the comparative nutritiousness of vegetable products. 
And unfortunately, too, the standard taken, hay, is the subject 
of special variations. To say nothing of the natural difference 
in the nutritiousness of the various kinds of grasses, which, 
when cut and cured, are termed "meadow hay," we know 
that the same kinds grown in a wet or dry season — cut a 
week earlier or a week later — cured rapidly in the sun, 
slowly in the cock, or slower still and with difficulty during 
wet, cloudy weather — vary very essentially in quality and 
nutriment. Take, for a single example, the main meadow 
grass of the northern portions of the United States, viz., 
timothy, (JPhleum pratense.) According to the Woburn 
experiments,* 64 drachms of it green give, when cut and 
cured in the flower, 2 dr. 2 gr. ; in the seed, 5 dr. 3 gr. ; 
latter-math, 2 dr. Thus, a difference of two weeks in the 
time of making timothy hay might cause a difference of more 
than 100 per cent, in the amount of nutriment it contains! f 

While it is unfortunate that no unvarying standard can be 
obtained, or fixed set of conditions agreed upon and observed, 
in the trial of this class of agricultural experiments, still there 
is quite as much accord in their results as we are accustomed 
to find in the opinions of sound, intelligent, practical farmers 
in regard to any of the experimental facts of farming, which 
they have been familiar with all their lives. We do not 
disregard the opinions of such men because they differ. And 
if we find them all pointing towards the same conclusion, we 
accept that conclusion as one beyond reasonable doubt. This 
is the light in which the statements contained in the Table of 
Nutritive Equivalents, on page 235, should be regarded. 
When, for example, scientific theory declares that clover hay, 
pound for pound, contains more nutriment than meadow hay, 
and when out of six careful and intelligent practical experi- 
ments, three also find it more nutritious, and the other three 
equally so, we are bound, as reasonable men, unless we have 

* Made some years since by Sinclair, on soils best adapted to each kind of grass, 
on the estate of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, England. 

t But to prevent mistakes let me add, that it makes no such difference in the 
practical value of timothy as sheep fodder. In the seed it is a dry, tough, unpalatable 
feed for them — and no good sheep farmer intentionally cuts it in that state for his 
flocks. This, however, in no wise affects the particular fact under consideration. It 
is to be presumed that timothy composed no inconsiderable share of the meadow hay 
assumed as a standard by Block, Petri, Von Thaer, Boussingault, etc.— but in 
neither instance are we informed whether it was cut in the flower or in the seed. 



238 COST AND ECONOMY OP DIFFERENT FEEDS. 

better proof to the contrary, to admit its equality and presume 
its superiority. When science and such an array of practice 
combine to pronounce peas and beans about equal with each 
other, and among the most nutritious of vegetable products, 
we ought to adopt that conclusion, if, indeed, we did not 
already know so notorious a fact. Accordingly, as few sheep 
farmers are able to make all these experiments for themselves 
in advance of trying them directly on the body of their flocks, 
all ought to see the expediency of a very careful study of 
such a table of Nutritive Equivalents as the preceding one. 

Reaumur's experiments, given on page 236, are also 
especially valuable: and it is only to be wished that their 
accuracy had also been tested by numerous other experiments 
directed to the same specific objects of inquiry. Still, I have 
great general confidence in them. Some of the facts he 
arrives at are very striking, as, for instance, the superiority 
of peas over every other vegetable substance named in his 
list, in the specific production of wool, while barley and 
wheat considerably exceed it? and oats nearly equal it, in the 
production of tallow. And a still more striking fact is found 
in the increase of wool and diminution of tallow produced by 
adding straw to "good hay" as a habitual food. If there is 
no mistake in this showing, it is a high point of policy in the 
wool grower to feed straw, and in the mutton grower to 
avoid feeding it. 

This brings me to another very important consideration, 
viz., the relative cost and general economy of the different 
kinds of feeds. According to Reaumur's Table, 1,000 pounds 
of peas produce 134 pounds live weight of carcass, 14 pounds 
11 ounces of wool, and 41 pounds 6 ounces of tallow, while 
1,000 pounds of mangel wurzel produce 38 pounds of live 
weight, 5 pounds 3£ ounces of wool, and 6 pounds 5-£ ounces 
of tallow. Thus the latter produces between a third and a 
fourth as much live weight, a little more than a third as much 
wool, and nearly a seventh as much tallow. Peas weigh 60 
lbs. to the bushel. If we assume that mangel wurzels weigh 
the same,* four bushels of them will produce more live weight 
and weight of wool than one bushel of peas. Not being per- 
sonally familiar with the culture of mangel wurzel, I will, for 
the purposes of this illustration, substitute Swedish turnips 

* This is the statutory -weight of a bushel of potatoes in New York,— but no 
weight is prescribed for other roots. I have never raised or weighed a bushel of 
mangel wurzels — but there cannot be difference enough between their weight and 
that of potatoes to make any material difference for the purposes of the comparison 
instituted in the text. 



EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING SHEEP. 239 

for them — which, by the united testimony of the experimenters 
given in the table of Nutritive Equivalents, contain more 
nutriment. Which is most cheaply produced, one bushel of 
peas or four bushels of Swedes? An acre of ground is 
thought to do unusually well in the region where I reside, 
that produces, one year with another, 25 bushels of peas. 
That acre does very poorly that does not produce 500 bushels 
of Swedes* — 20 bushels for one of peas. The difference in 
the cost of preparing the ground, cultivating the crop and 
harvesting, is considerable ; but it makes no approach to the 
difference in the product of nutriment. Oats compare 
equally unfavorably with turnips on the score of economy. 

I wish to show by such facts as the above, that the sheep 
farmer in determining what crops he will grow for the winter 
keep of his sheep, is not merely to estimate the relative value 
of feeds per pound, but to ascertain how he can provide the 
most nutriment suitable for sheep, at a given cost. Knowing 
the adaptation of his farm to the different products, and the 
cost to himself of producing each, every intelligent farmer 
can, better than anybody else for him, institute comparisons 
like the above, between all the products named in the 
preceding tables. 

The following records of experiments in feeding are from 
Mr. Robert Smith's essay "On the Management of Sheep," 
which received the prize of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England, in 1847: 

"Experiment No. 1. — On the 20th of December, 1842, 
eight lambs were weighed and placed upon the regular turnip 
land, (a red loam, with cold subsoil,) to consume the turnips 
where they grew, and were regularly supplied with what cut 
Swedes they would eat, which proved to be on an average of 
23^ pounds per day. They were again weighed on the 3d 
of April, 1843, being 15 weeks, and found to have gained, 
upon an average, during the time, 25 £ pounds each. 

" No. 2. — On the same day eight lambs were placed in a 
grass paddock, under the same regulations, and found to have 
consumed, on an average, 19 lbs. of turnips per day, and 
gained, during the time, 26f lbs. each. 

" No. 3. — On the same day, eight lambs were placed 
alongside the No. 2 lot in the grass paddock, and allowed to 
run in and out of an open shed during the day, but regularly 
shut up at night. They were allowed half a pound of mixed 

* I think my own crops have averaged at least 700 or 800 bushels to the acre, for a 
period of 15 years or more ; and one year they exceeded 1,100 bushels per acre. 



240 EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING SHEEP. 

oil cake and peas each per day, and consumed 20£ pounds of 
turnips per day, and gained 33£ pounds each. 

"No. 4. — On the same day, eight lambs were placed 
with the Nos. 2 and 3 lots in the grass paddock, under the 
same regulations as No. 3, but supplied with one pound of 
mixed corn* per day. They consumed 20 pounds of turnips 
per day, during the following ten weeks, being again 
weighed on the 28th of February, 1843, and gamed, on an 
average, 26£ pounds each. 

"No. 5. — Eight lambs were also placed in a warm 
paddock, with a shed to run under during the day, but were 
shut up at least 18 hours, and fed upon 1^ lbs. of mixed corn 
per day, and consumed 18£ lbs. of turnips per day. They 
Avere again weighed at the same time as No. 4, and found to 
have gained 33 £ pounds each during the ten weeks. 

"No 6. — On the 5th of January, 1843, sixteen shearlings 
were equally divided, and eight placed upon a grass paddock, 
and allowed one pound of mixed corn each per day. They 
consumed 24 pouuds of Swedish turnips each lot per day. 
They were again weighed on the 2d of March, being eight 
weeks, and were found to have gained 21^- pounds each. 

" No. 7. — On the same day the other eight shearlings 
were placed alongside the No. 6 in the grass paddock, and 
allowed one pound of mixed corn each, and consumed 20^ 
pounds of turnips per day. They were allowed an open shed 
to run under during the day, and regularly shut in at nights — 
and again weighed at the same time as No. 6, and were 
found to have gained 24 pounds each during the eight weeks. 

" No. 8. — On the third of April, the eight lambs (No. 3,) 
having been weighed, were placed upon young clover, and 
supplied with half a pound of mixed corn, as before. They 
consumed 12 lbs. of turnips per day during the following 
month. Being again weighed on the 1st of May, they were 
found to have gained llf lbs. each. They had a shed to run 
under during the day, and were shut up at night. 

"No. 9.— On the 29th of May, the eight lambs (No. 8,) 
were again weighed, having been allowed, as before, half a 
pound of mixed corn upon the clover, but no turnips, with a 
shed to run under at will. They were found to have gained 
16 lbs. each during the month. 



* Wherever the word "corn" occurs in this record of experiments, it is to he 
understood in its general sense of grain,' and the mixed grain, referred to hy Mr. 
Smith, did not even include Indian corn — that not heing one of the grain crops of 
England. 



EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING SHEEP. 241 

"To prove the. temperature of the animal body during the 
hot weather, I placed the two lots of shearlings, No. 6 and 
No. 7, upon moderate clover on the 1st of July, 1843. 

"No. 10. — The eight shearlings, (No. 6,) were weighed, 
and allowed one pint of peas per day, and again weighed at the 
the end of 21 days, and were found to have gained 9^ lbs. each. 

"No. 11. — The eight shearlings, (No. 7,) were also 
weighed, and given one pint of old beans per day, and again 
weighed at the same time, and were found to have gained 6 
lbs. each, the peas appearing most suitable to the animal 
temperature during the hot weather, and the beans far too hot. 
What is more important, those sheep fed upon beans were 
getting full of humors in this short space of time, while 
those fed u])on peas were looking exceedingly healthy. 

"In the autumn of 1843, after making the above experi- 
ments, I determined upon testing the qualities of the various 
vegetables open to our use at that season of the year. On 
the 2d of October, 1843, thirty lambs were equally divided 
into lots of ten each, and placed upon over-eaten seeds. They 
Avere all weighed, and the roots regularly given them by an 
experienced shepherd. 

"No. 12. — Ten lambs, fed upon cut white turnips, were 
again weighed on the 13th of November, and were found to 
have gained, upon an average, 11 lbs. each. 

"No. 13. — Ten lambs, fed upon cut Swedes, gained during 
the six weeks, upon an average, 11 lbs. each. 

"No. 14. — Ten lambs fed upon cut cabbage, gained 
during the time, 16^ pounds each, showing, as I fully 
expected, a preference in favor of cabbage ; but, to my equal 
surprise, a great difference in favor of the white turnip over 
the Swede. By subsequent experiments I found, as the cold 
weather advanced, the cabbage and white turnip became of 
less value, and that the Swede improved. 

" In the autumn of 1844, having placed my ram lambs in 
their winter quarters, and observing that those placed upon 
cole-seed were going on apparently the best, I determined to 
weigh a part of them in comparison with those placed in pens 
upon grass land; consequently, on the 14th of October, 1844, 
the following lots were weighed, as in previous experiments, 
the ten upon the cole-seed being selected from 24 others, 
marked, and again placed with them: 

"No. 15. — Ten lambs penned upon cole-seed,* with cut 



* A species of cabbage. 

11 



242 EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING SHEEP. 

clover chaff, were again weighed at the end of one month, 
and found to have gained 12.1 pounds each. 

"No. 1G. — Ten lambs penned upon drum-head cabbage, 
with cut clover chaff, and weighed as above; they gained 
10£ pounds each. 

"No. 17. — Ten lambs placed upon grass and fed upon cut 
Swedes and cabbage, of equal quantities, with clover chaff, 
gained 9f lbs. each. 

" No. 18. — Ten lambs placed upon grass and fed upon cut 
white turnips and cabbage, of equal quantities, with clover 
chaff, gained 11 lbs. each. 

" Having frequently given my lambs carrots during the 
winter and spring months, and to no apparent advantage, 
when compared with other roots, I determined to test their 
qualities after the expiration of the above experiments, and the 
No. 16 lot were supplied with what Swedes they would eat, 
and the No. 17 lot with carrots. 

"No. 19. — Ten lambs, fed upon cut Swedes and clover- 
chaff, having been weighed at the end of the other experi- 
ment, were again weighed on the 9th of December. They 
were found to have gained during the month 10 lbs. each, 
and consumed 22 lbs. of turnips per day. 

"No. 20. — Ten lambs fed upon cut carrots and clover- 
chaff, were weighed as above on the 9th of December, and 
were found to have gained 9£ lbs. each, and consumed 22^ 
lbs. of carrots per day. 

" Thus proving that the carrot can not be given to sheep 
with equal profit, when compared with the Swede turnip, the 
carrot being more expensive and hazardous in its cultivation, 
and producing rather less animal food from a given weight 
at this season of the year." 

I shall place a further list of English experiments in 
winter feeds in the appendix of this volume. * 

Turnips are not adapted either to the soil or circumstances 
of all parts of our country where sheep are kept. I have been 
informed by many of the fiirmers in those regions of Vermont 
where the best sheep are raised, that this crop does not flourish 
on their farms, f And it would be folly to bring turnips into 
competition with Indian corn, as a habitual winter feed, in 
our Western States, where the latter crop can be raised for 

* See Appendix C. 

t I raised this question once in the presence of a number of the leading sheep 
breeders of Addison county — the first sheep breeding county in the State — and 
they without an exception concurred in the opinion stated in the text. 



MIXED FEEDS FOE SHEEP. 243 

ten or fifteen cents a bushel. But I know of no cheaper feed, 
except the last; and that does not approach turnips in 
cheapness, on lands equally suited to their respective produc- 
tion in the Middle or Eastern States. In all the latter 
situations — even in those interior regions where the price of 
hay has hitherto averaged less than $8 a tun — it is more 
economical to feed turnips with hay and straw, than it is to 
feed hay alone. I have established that fact to my own 
satisfaction by the experience of many years. 

The beet is not included in the above English experiments, 
and I have never used it as sheep feed myself. Mr. Chamber- 
lain brought a variety of it with his sheep from Silesia, and is 
satisfied of the economy and high utility of the crop — but 
has not, so far as I am informed, tested it in comparison with 
turnips. My friend, Hon. George Geddes, of Fairmount, 
New York, has cultivated the same kind of beets, and also 
turnips, for sheep feed. On his soils (among the best in the 
State) he, thus far, gives preference to the beet. He has not 
instituted any comparisons between them by weighing 
respectively feed and product — but as a farmer who has no 
superior in our country in both the theory and practice of his 
occupation, his observations, although unaided by such tests, 
are entitled to very great weight. Carrots have failed as 
sheep feed in this country, for the same reasons assigned by 
Mr. Robert Smith for their failure in England. Rape is 
cultivated by a few of our growers of English sheep, and is 
thought highly of by them. Tares and cole seed are unknown 
to the great body of our sheep farmers, and I am not aware 
that common cabbage is cultivated by any of them as a field 
crop for sheep. 

Mixed Feeds. — In making up mixed feeds for sheep, 
composed of the different products which arc found most 
available and economical, care should be taken to keep the 
proportion of nutriment to bulk such that a proper supply of the 
former can be taken into the stomach, without oppressing that 
organ. It has been seen that 3^- per cent, of the live weight per 
diem in hay, about meets the demands of the animal economy; 
and it probably also about fills the stomach to a comfortable 
state of fullness. If then a sheep weighing 90 lbs. received half 
its nutriment in hay and half in the better kinds of straw 
(which contain half as much nutriment as hay,) it would be 
required to consume 1-J lbs. of hay and 3 lbs. of straw daily 
— an aggregate of 4% lbs., which, I think, could not be 



244 MIXED FEEDS FOR SHEEP. 

daily taken into and digested in the stomach of a sheep of 
tli.it size. Therefore, to put sheep on half straw feed, it is 
necessary that some other portion of their feed be more 
concentrated, or more nutritious in proportion to hulk than 
hay — as, for example, grain or roots — or else they will not 
get their proper supply of nutriment. 

My own course, when feeding straw, has been to give a 
feed of hay at morning and evening, (intended to average 
about a pound per head each time,) all the straw the sheep 
will eat and about a pound of cut turnips each, at noon — the 
latter being a little increased if the hay and straw are not of 
prime quality. But I do not often give over two bushels, or 
120 lbs. of turnips, to a hundred. Hay here does not average 
$8 a ton; and though I regard feeding turnips as economical, 
my major object in growing and feeding them is to promote 
the health and thrift of my breeding ewes, and the growth of 
my lambs. 

Some excellent sheep farmers on grain and clover- seed 
farms lying a few miles north of me — where a contiguous 
city market raises the average price of hay about 50 per cent, 
higher than here — give their store sheep no hay until March, 
feeding them in lieu of it, bright, good straw in abundance, 
clover chaff,* and a daily feed of Indian corn ranging from one 
and a half to two gills per head, according to their size and to 
other circumstances. The straw and grain chaff are generally 
fed fresh from the thrashing floor half a dozen times a day, 
and the sheep are not required to eat it at all close. After 
the first of March a full supply of bright clover hay is given 
and the grain feed taken oft". The sheep, as I have had 
repeated occasion to observe, winter well, and the breeding 
ewes raise good lambs. 

I do not believe that breeding ewes or lambs could 
properly be fed enough straw and turnips — particularly it 
the straw was dry and ripe — to obtain the equivalent of a 
full supply of hay. If turnips are fed in excess, they render 
the evacuations too thin and active for severely cold weather. 
But a pound a head given to straw-fed sheep with a little 
diminution of the corn otherwise requisite, would, I think, 
constitute a better and cheaper feed than entire corn and 
straw. 

The comparative nutriment of the different kinds of straw 
has been given in the table on page 235. Oat and barley 

* That is, what is left of clover after thrashing or hulling — a black, unpromising 
looking mass. 



FATTENING SHEEP IN WINTER. 245 

straw cut quite green and cured bright, are highly relished by 
sheejD. I had rather have them (particularly if thrashed with 
a flail so that a few small green kernels remain in the ends of 
the heads,) than hay in the situation in which it is frequently 
cured for use. Wheat straw ranks next, among the common 
varieties of straw. Sheep do not relish it, and will not eat it 
very well if they get any hay. But when confined to it and 
grain, they learn to eat it and thrive on it. They must not, 
however, be compelled to eat it as close as oat and barley 
straw. Ripe rye straw, unless cut fine and mixed with meal, 
is a dry, harsh, unprofitable and wholly unacceptable food to 
sheep. All straws are eaten much better by them when fresh 
thrashed and fed frequently in small quantities. 

Corn-stalks are contained in neither of the preceding 
tables of nutrition. When cut and cured bright, before frost, no 
feed is better relished by sheep than the leaves and some finer 
portions of the stalks : and they thrive admirably on them. 

Pea-haulm, if cut and cured green, is highly valuable 
and is highly relished by sheep ; but when not harvested until 
dried up and dead — according to the more common mode — 
it is utterly worthless for them. 

In seasons of great scarcity of hay and straw, sheep have 
been repeatedly and successfully wintered by feeding them 
almost exclusively on grain. Such a " hay-famine " occurred 
in the best sheep region of Vermont, in the winter of 1860-61, 
occasioned by a severe drouth the preceding summer. Flock- 
masters who were determined to keep well at all hazards, fed 
their sheep a pound (or quart) of oats per head, with such 
quantities of hay, straw, etc., as they could obtain. In better 
Indian corn growing regions, a pound of corn a day is given 
under like circumstances. 

Fattening Sheep in Winter. — The present ordinary 
mode of fattening sheep in winter in New York, is thus 
described in a letter to me from John Johnston, Esq., of 
Geneva, New York, who is one of the oldest and most 
experienced feeders, as well as grain farmers in the United 
States : 

" I generally buy my sheep in October. Then I have good 
pasture to put them on, and they gain a good deal before 
winter sets in. I have generally had to put them in the yards 
about the first of December. For the last 23 years I have 
fed straw the first two or two and a half months, a pound of 
oil cake, meal or grain to each sheep. When I commence 



240 REGULARITY IN FEEDING. 

feeding hay, if it is good, early cut clover, I generally reduce 
the quantity of meal or grain one-half; but that depends on 
the condition of the sheep. If they are not pretty fat, I 
continue the full feed of meal or gram with their clover, and 
on both they fatten wonderfully fast. This year (1862-3) I 
fed buckwheat, a pound to each per day, half in the morning 
and half at 4 o'clock P. M., with wheat and barley straw. I 
found the sheep gained a little over a pound each per week. 
It never was profitable for me to commence fattening lean 
sheep, or very fat ones. Sheep should be tolerably fair mutton 
when yarded. I keep their yards and sheds thoroughly 
littered with straw. 

" Last year I only fed straw one month. The sheep were 
fed a pound of buckwheat each. From the 20th of October 
to the 1st of March, they gained nearly l£ pounds each per 
week. They "were full-blood Merinos — but not those with 
the large cravats around their necks. I have fed sheep for 
the eastern markets for more than 30 years, and I always 
made a profit on them except in 1841-2. I then fed at a loss. 
It was a tight squeeze in 1860-1 to get their dung for profit. 
Some years I have made largely. I did so this year, (1862-3,) 
and if I had held on two weeks longer I should have made 
much more. Taking all together it has been a good business 
for me." 

Mr. Johnston by under-draining* and by the manure 
obtained by fattening sheep, has almost created one of the 
finest farms in New York. I think his land is not adapted 
to turnips. 

Regularity in Feeding. — The utmost regularity should 
be observed in the times of feeding either store or fattening 
sheep, and in giving them just the requisite amount to last 
them until the next feeding. If permitted to waste hay, they 
rapidly acquire the habit of doing so — i. e., picking out the 
best and then waiting, even though quite hungry, for another 
feed. If the hay is coarse and was cut over-ripe, and 
especially if clover hay be thus circumstanced, it is not 
profitable to compel the sheep to eat all the orts or refuse ; 
but even Avith such hay, sheep can soon be taught by over- 
feeding and carelessness, to make a most unnecessary degree 
of waste. 

All experienced flock-masters concur in the opinion that 

* He is the father of underground tile-draining in the United States. 



REGULARITY IN FEEDING SALT. 247 

sheep fed with perfect regularity as to time and amount 
(making proper allowance for the weather,) will do better on 
rather inferior keep, than on the best without that regularity. 
I prefer feeeding three times a day even in the shortest 
days of winter ; but many good flock - masters feed but twice. 
If fed three times, it should be at sunrise, noon, and an hour 
before dark ; if but twice, the last feeding should be an hour 
earlier. Sheep do not stand at their racks and eat well in 
the dark. It is not very important at what period of the day 
grain or roots are given provided the time is uniform. 

Salt. — Salt is not perhaps quite as necessary to the health 
of sheep in winter as in summer, but still all good shepherds 
regard it as indispensable. It should be fed as often as once 
a week, in the feeding troughs, or by brining a quantity of 
hay or straw. The Vermont breeders almost universally 
keep it standing constantly before their sheep in boxes placed 
in the sheep -houses. My friend Gen. Otto F. Marshall, of 
Steuben County, New York, has an excellent and economical 
mode of feeding it. The orts when taken from the sheep 
racks are thrown into a box - rack wider and considerably 
higher than the common ones, and placed under a shed. The 
orts are sprinkled with brine, and the sheep when hungry 
for salt go to the ort rack and consume them. Thus all 
the hay is saved. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

PEAIEIE SHEEP HUSBANDEY. 

PRAIRIE MANAGEMENT IN SUMMER LAMBING FOLDS AND 

DOGS STABLES — HERDING — WASHING SHEARING 

STORING AND SELLING WOOL TICKS PRAIRIE DISEASES 

SALT WEANING LAMBS PRAIRIE MANAGEMENT IN 

WINTER WINTER FEED SHEDS OR STABLES WATER 

LOCATION OF SHEEP ESTABLISHMENT. 

The growing of sheep is rapidly increasing in nearly all 
the new States of the Union west of the Mississippi, and in 
those which lie on its east bank north of the Ohio.* In all 
these States are immense tracts of natural pasturage, usually 
lying in the form of level or rolling prairies — but occasionally 
in broken tracts containing hills of considerable elevation. 
The grasses which grow on them are invariably found to be 
well adapted to the support of domestic animals. 

It has already been ascertained by direct experiment tli.it 
flocks of sheep will obtain their support throughout the entire 
year, from these natural pastures, as far north as 33 deg. in 
Central and Western Texas. Ascending north on the banks 
of the Mississippi, the necessity for artificial winter feed 
gradually increases until in latitude 40 deg. — about the range 
of St. Joseph in Missouri, and Springfield in Illinois — it is 
required through six months of the year. But the domestic 
grasses will flourish a month longer there, so that the period 
of dry foddering is restricted to about five months. 

Ascending north from Texas on the coast of the Pacific, 
the temperature decreases less rapidly. The variation of the 
isothermal line (the line of equal mean heat) on the shores of that 
ocean and of the Mississippi river, has been popularly claimed 
to equal ten degrees. While there are yet few settled data 
to enable us to draw definite eceneral conclusions on the 



* For Census of sheep and products of wool in all the States and Territories 
anterior to 1863, see Appendix D. 



TEMPERATURE OP PRAIRIE STATES. 249 

subject, the thermometrical observations already taken do 
not authorize the conclusion that the difference is so great. I 
have picked out the following examples of the annual mean 
heat at such points in Texas, on the Mississippi, and on the 
Pacific, as came nearest to the regions I Avished. to compare in 
this particular, from the multifarious tables contained in the 
Report of "The Results of Meteorological Observations 
made under the direction of the United States Patent Office 
and the Smithsonian Institution from 1854 to 1859 inclusive."* 

Latitude. 1854. 1855. 1856. 1S57. 1858. 1859. 

New Braunfels,t Texas, 29°.42' 64.61 68.85 70.07 

Austin, Texas, - 30.20 64.43 65.84 64.64 65.85 67.53 68.08 

San Francisco, California, 3S.00 55.28 57.43 56.23 

Sacramento, California, 38.34 59.51 60.03 60.01 59.58 58.74 

St. Louis, Missouri, 38.37 58.37 53.42 53.42 56.69 55.45 

Ottawa, Illinois, 41.20 51.69 4S.94 48.15 45.88 49.01 48.37 

It will be observed that while the mean heat of St. Louis 
and Sacramento, in almost identically the same latitude, varies, 
on the average, 4.22 degrees, there is a much greater propor- 
tionable difference in the mean heat of Sacramento and 
Ottawa, which for six years averages 11.02 deg. J These 
facts render it obvious that the seasons of pasturage must be 
materially longer on our Pacific coast, than in corresponding 
latitudes on the Mississippi. 

In all the newer States there are lands covered by natural 
pastures which are exceedingly cheap. In most of them it can 
be purchased in any quantities for $1.25 an acre. In the older 
prairie States, like Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin, desirable 
tracts would cost considerably more — but still very greatly 
less than grazing lands of half their fertility in the old North 
and North-eastern States. 

But, in reality, it is not necessary for the wool grower now, 
nor will it be for many years to come — in most of the above 
States — either to own or pay rent on a great proportion of the 
lands depastured by his sheep. We have no redundant popu- 
lation ready to take up with lands which are destitute of any 
of the essential requisites demanded by the settler. The 
comparative lack of wood and of running water in the in- 
terior of these vast western plains, prevents them from being 

* Published by order of the Senate, 1861. 

t New Braunfels is about twenty-five miles by a direct line north-east of San 
Antonio, and lies on the southern border of the sheep growing region proper, of 
Western Texas. It was rather the head-quarters of Mr. G. W. Kendall's difl'erent 
jheep establishments. 

X To facilitate other comparisons I will here give the mean temperature of several 
■Df the points named in the tabic :— Austin, 66.39 mean of 6 years ; Sacramento, 59.69 
nean of 6 years ; St. Louis, 55.47 mean of 5 years ; Ottawa, 48.67 mean of 6 years. 
11* 



250 COST OF KEEPING ON PRAIRIES. 

settled, except on the edges and on water courses; and all the 
sheep farmer needs in such situations is sufficient land for his 
buildings, grain fields, and, — as his wealth and conveniences 
increase — for pastures of artificial grass for the early spring 
and late fall feed of his sheep. When the banks of the 
streams and the clumps of wood-land are occupied by settlers, 
they, in effect, have the permanent control of the interior 
pasturage, often many miles in extent. I have been informed 
of instances in Texas where an individual, or a small party of 
individuals, have bought a narrow strip on each bank of a river 
for a number of miles, and thus prevented the sale of and actually 
threw out of market hundreds of thousands of acres which 
were by this means cut off from all access to water, without 
traveling, perhaps for miles, to the next river bank. But, in 
truth, the vast extent of our Prairie lands defies all attempts 
at monopoly. Even in a State comparatively as old as Illinois 
— containing at the last census a population of over one 
million seven hundred thousand persons, and probably 
now containing 50,000 sheep* — immense tracts of land, 
owned in part by the Government, but principally by non- 
resident owners, (" speculators,") lie open and free to the use 
of all ; and there is now actually a class of nomadic shepherds 
in that State who keep flocks of sheep, sometimes numbering 
upward of two thousand each, who, in the words of the dying 
Son of the Mist, " Take no hire — give no stipend — build no 
hut — inclose no pasture — sow no grain." These men are 
generally industrious Germans, who, after serving flock- 
masters as shepherds for a year or two, invested their 
earnings in enough sheep to commence flocks of their own. 
They follow their sheep by day over the prairies, herding 
them in little temporary inclosures at night to protect them 
from wolves and dogs. In the fall they buy a field of corn, 
drive their sheep to it for the winter, and in the spring 
resume their wanderings. 

In all the new Western States, sheep have been found to 
acclimate without the least difficulty, f In Texas in the 
extreme South, in Minnesota in the extreme North, in Cali- 
fornia in the extreme West, and in every intermediate region 
where they have been introduced, sheep remain signally 
healthy, thrive to the highest degree, produce as much wool 

* By the United States Census of 1800, there were then 33.822 sheep in Illinois, 
and they have increased much more rapidly than ever before, since that period. 

t For a letter showing how sheep are got into the new States — how a sheep 
establishment is started — and how the first winter is got over, see Ari'KNDix E. 



PROFITS OF SHEEP ON THE PRAIRIES. 251 

per head if as well fed, as in the old Eastern States, and the 
wool is not deteriorated in any apparent or real quality- 
It can require no formal array of facts to show that the 
profits of sheep husbandry on the prairies must greatly exceed 
those obtained in States lying further east, where the land is 
no better and costs from five to fifty times as much. It seems 
now also to be a conceded fact that the profits of sheep 
production decidedly exceed those of horse, cattle, or swine 
production on the prairies. 

The surplus wheat and Indian corn of the West finds its 
market on the eastern sea-board. It generally costs half of 
the crop of wheat, and from five-sixths to six-sevenths of the 
crop of corn to transport the remainder to New York by rail 
in the winter, from regions lying no further west than the 
east bank of the Mississippi. It costs less than two cents a 
pound to transport wool, which, at the average prices of wool 
for thirty-five years preceding the present war, is less than 
two forty-seconds of the value of the medium, and two thirty- 
fifths of the value of the coarse article. By the Mississippi, or 
by the northern river, lake and canal navigation which is avail- 
able in summer, the transportation of the heavy, bulky Western 
products is considerably less. But when a pound of wool is 
worth on the farm about as much as four bushels of corn, and 
when that amount of corn is more than fifty times as bulky, 
and two hundred and twenty-four times as heavy* as a pound 
of wool, there must, under any circumstances, remain an 
insuperable obstacle to the comparative profitableness of 
corn as a marketable product — and indeed of all other bulky 
and heavy products, f 

* In some of the States the weight of corn is established at 56 lbs., in others, 
58 lbs. per bushel. 

t Since the above was in the hands of the publisher, the articles on sheep, in the 
Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, have fallen under my eye, and I find the 
following statements in an article on " Sheep on the Prairies," by Hon. J. B. Grinnell, 
of Grinnell, Iowa : — " At any point two hundred miles from Chicago this ratio of cost 
in freighting is well established ; that to transport your products to the seaboard, on 
wheat you pay 80 per cent, of its value; on pork 30 per cent.; on beef 20 percent.; 
gross on wool Ajier cent. This is not conjecture, but my own experience, that I give 
SO per cent, of the value of my wheat which impoverishes my farm, to find a market ; 
and 4 per cent, to find the best wool market, the production of which enriches my 
acres beyond computation." 

The following statements occur in a paper entitled " Sheep Husbandy in the 
West," by Samuel Boardman, of Lincoln, Logan county, Illinois: — "With wheat 
worth sixty-five cents per bushel, it costs one bushel to send another from Central 
Illinois to market. With corn at ten cents per bushel, it takes over six bushels to 
carry the one to New York. It costs one cent and two-thirds of a cent to send a 
pound of wool to New York ; less than two cents will carry fifty cents' worth of wool 
to market ; to carry fifty cents' worth of corn costs about three dollars. In my own 
case, I could haul my wool to New York in less time than I could haul the corn I feed 
to my sheep in the winter six miles to the railroad, and I could also haul the wool to 
New York cheaper than I could ship the corn by rail. Even in this State, with its 



252 rKAIRIE MASAGKMENT IN SUMMKK. 

Prairie sheep husbandry has the same general features 
everywhere, in the summer. In the winter there are essential 
differences in its operations in regions of perennial verdure, 
like Western Texas, and in those of six or seven months 
verdure, like Central Illinois, Northern Missouri and Kansas. 
I shall proeeed briefly to describe the proper summer manage- 
ment in all these regions, and the different systems of winter 
management in the North and South. It will not be 
necessary to enter upon details, except when the management 
dift'ers from that of the older regions already described in 
this work. 

Prairie Management in Summer. — In latitude 40 dcg., 
in the basin of the Mississippi — the latitude of Central Illinois 
and Northern Missouri — sheep can generally find subsistence 
on the prairies after about the middle of April. As soon as 
the new grass sprouts in the smallest degree, the immense 
range supplies them with food. 

Lambing. — Lambs in the last named regions, where they 
are, as it is termed, "raised on the range," — i. e., where the 
ewes are kept on the open prairie during the lambing season 
— are. not allowed to commence coming before the 1st of 
May, when the feed is expected to be abundant, and the 
danger of cold storms greatly over. Lambing on the range, 
however, is at best attended with great labor and care to the 
shepherd, and no little danger to the young of his charge. 
In a prairie flock, eight or ten hundred breeding ewes is a 
moderate number ; and the same circumstances which compel 
their being turned out on the prairies to lamb — the want of 
suitable inclosures seeded to domestic grasses — also prevents 
any division of flocks. When from thirty to fifty lambs are 
dropped a day, it is a matter of difficulty to get the younger 
and weaker ones to the folds within the proper time at night, 
or on the appearance of a storm, without separating them 
from their clams. When such separation takes place, near 
nightfall, and twenty or thirty ewes are then running through 
the flock bleating distractedly for their young, it produces a 
srrne of wild confusion; lambs are run over and trampled on; 
the ewes, in the increasing darkness, do not find their lambs ; 

more than three thousand miles of railroad, wool-growing is more profitable than 
wheat and Corn, our great items of export. How much more. then, is it in the great 
portion of the North-west, which does not now, and may not for many years, possess 
the questionable advantages of railroads with which to market wheat or corn in 
the raw state?" 



LAMBING FOLDS STABLES. 253 

if new dropped and not well filled with milk, the latter are 
liable to perish before morning in cold weather ; and when 
morning comes some of the ewes, particularly young ones, 
never again recognize their lambs. The small portable pens 
recommended at page 159, would not be available here, 
because they would not keep out the wolf. All folding pens 
on the prairies require to be five or six feet high for that 
purpose. I am not aware that it has been tried, but I am 
well satisfied that three or four, or half a dozen temporary 
pens, according to the size of the flock, put up on different 
parts of the range, each of which would conveniently hold 
half a dozen sheep, and into which the shepherd should be 
getting the youngest lambs and their dams some time before 
nightfall, would amply pay for themselves in one stormy 
lambing season — while they might be made to last through 
a man's life. * 

Folds and Dogs. — A permanent fold for the night, unless 
a good sheltered one, affords so few advantages and produces 
so many disadvantages, that it is highly desirable to dispense 
with it at all times, and particularly in lambing time, if any 
other way can be found to guard the flock from wolves and 
dogs. This is effectually done in other countries by means of 
suitable breeds of sheep dogs. The immense utility of 
introducing some of these varieties into our prairie States, and 
changing the system of folding, would seem to be obvious. 
Some information on this subject will be offered in the 
Chapter on Dogs. 

Stables. — But by far the best place for lambing, in 
northern prairie climates, is an inclosed field of domestic 
grass, immediately about sheltered close sheds or stables, 
which can be used as occasion requires. A large flock ought, 
for obvious reasons, if it is rendered practicable by the 
number of the fields, to be divided into smaller flocks — or 



* It would be best to make them with materials prepared and kept for that 
express purpose. I should think it would be very convenient to construct them of 
four lengths, or panels of light, strong fence, capable of -being put together without 
nails. Ten or twelve feet boards might be inserted in mortices or grooves in corner 
posts, the upper and lower boards being fastened in them by movable pins. The 
corner posts of these lengths might be fastened together by hooks and staples. Thus 
four lengths would form a pen of 10 or 12 feet square. This could be covered as far as 
desirable — a great improvement for inclement weather — by boards two feet longer 
than the side boards. This would form a pen which could be set up, or taken in 
pieces and loaded in a cart, by two men in less than half an hour, without any injury 
to the materials. The materials should of course be piled away under cover when 
not in use. 



254 PRATBTK MANAGEMENT — HERDING, ETC. 

else the ewes having the older lambs ought to be frequently 
takes out and put by themselves. In other respects, the 
general management should substantially comport with that 
practiced in the Eastern States. 

Herding. — From the period of lambing to that of 
washing and shearing, there are no peculiarities in prairie 
management except in herding. The great art of doing this 
Well, is to get out the sheep as soon as it is light in the 
morning ; to conduct them to the best pasturage ; to follow 
them about patiently, never losing sight of them, and allowing 
them to spread as far as is prudent over the face of the 
prairie ; to avoid all unnecessary dogging ; to avoid huddling 
them together w T ith the dogs to enable the shepherd to take a 
siesta or attend to something else ; to keep them out until 
there is barely enough time to fold them before dark ; and, 
finally, to fold them at night carefully, gently and securely. 

Washing. — Some prairie flocks are necessarily driven 
from five to ten miles to reach running streams or "branches," 
as they are termed in the West, in which they can be 
conveniently w T ashed ; and owing to the level surfaces of most 
prairie regions, they generally have to be washed without any 
dams, and frequently in quite sluggish water. But washing 
is considered particularly necessary on account of the stained 
condition of the wool. The wild grasses on prairies grow up 
in separate stools or tufts, and do not sod over the ground 
like domestic grasses. Consequently the hoofs of the sheep 
detach the dirt in hot, dry weather, and it adheres to the 
wool as they lie down on it, or as it rises in clouds of dust 
under their feet. The sheep are usually washed at intervals, 
in parcels of 800 or 1,000 each, so they can all be sheared at 
about the same periods after washing, before the wool again 
becomes dirt -stained. 

Shearing. — Shearing is performed from a week to two 
weeks after washing. It is, or at least ought to be, con- 
ducted in the same general way as in the older States. The 
present practice is to pay hands five cents a head for 
shearing, and they shear from thirty to sixty sheep per day. 

Storing and Selling Wool. — Few prairie wool growers 
have yet constructed wool houses; and like growers every- 
where else, most of them wish to obtain the avails of their 



PRAIRIE SHEEP DISEASES. 255 

wool as soon as practicable after shearing. The clip 
generally remains in the barn a few days, and if not sold, is 
sacked and sent to some eastern city market. 

Ticks. — Prairie sheep generally suffer but little trouble 
from ticks, because they are kept in high condition the year 
round. But wherever these parasites obtain a foothold, they 
should be promptly exterminated. 

Prairie Diseases. — Scab is by far the most formidable 
disease of sheep on the prairies, owing to its highly contagious 
character and to the labor it costs to eradicate it from large 
flocks running together. My attention has also been very 
frequently called by Texas correspondents to some minor 
forms of cutaneous disease, believed also to be infectious, 
which prevail in that State. Both of these maladies, and 
their proper treatment, will be considered in a subsequent 
portion of this work. Hoof-rot, the greatest scourge of the 
flocks of New England, New York, etc., does not yet appear 
to establish itself on the prairies. It is claimed, and no doubt 
is true, that flocks to some degree affected with this disease 
in the Eastern States, on being driven to the prairies lose all 
traces of it. That this is true in respect to sheep taken to 
the Southern and Southwestern States, I know from my own 
experience. The hoof-rot Avas introduced into my flocks 
about twelve years since, when I was receiving numerous 
orders for sheep from those States. Having got the disease 
subdued as far as practicable, for the time, I shipped several 
lots to Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, apprising the 
purchasers of the facts, and making myself responsible for the 
consequences, by offering to refund the purchase money if the 
sheep should again exhibit the disease. I requested to be 
informed of their first lameness : and whether lame or not, 
to be informed of their condition after the lapse of a few 
months. Not one of the sheep again exhibited a trace of 
hoof-rot, or lameness of any kind ; and their thriftiness was 
the occasion of especial remark. Before I exterminated the 
disease from my flocks, I, in like manner, sent colonies to 
nearly or quite every Southern State, except Florida, to all 
the Southwestern States, and the Indian Territory on the 
headwaters of the Arkansas, and always with the same result. 

I am disposed to attribute this immunity from the disease 
in the South to the dry, sandy, permeable character of the 
soils, and to the dust which the sheep's foot constantly comes 



256 PRAIRIE MANAGEMENT IN WINTER. 

in contact with, in dry weather, between the stools of grass 
in the natural pastures. If the disease does not appear on the 
western ] dailies, I shall be disposed to attribute it to the 
same causes, where both exist, or entirely to the last. During 
active stages of the malady, dry dust might rather aggravate 
its symptoms than otherwise; but it has long been known 
that it will "dry up" and cure the old and partly subdued 
ulcers of the feet. Eastern farmers sometimes drive their 
sheep over dusty roads for this express purpose. 

I am not aware that there are any other serious ovine 
maladies which are either peculiar to the prairies, or peculiar 
for not prevailing on them : although it is not at all improba- 
ble that further experience and closer observation may develop 
a number of this class. 

Salt. — On the prairies, as elsewhere, salt is justly 
regarded as indispensable. It is usually fed once a week, 
about 40 pounds to a thousand sheep. 

Weaning Lambs. — The lambs are weaned about the first of 
September, when the prairie grasses in the North have be- 
come too tough and dry to put them into proper condition for 
winter. Accordingly the best prairie shepherds have a fresh 
field of domestic grass — generally blue-grass — to put their 
lambs on at weaning. Most of them have the corn-field, which 
is to subsist the sheep during the winter, next to the Lamb 
pasture, and allow the lambs to run in each at will. This is 
done not only for the immediate benefit of the lambs, but to 
accustom them to eat corn before winter. Some sow the 
corn-field itself to winter rye, at the last plowing. This 
* affords fall feed for the lambs, and good spring feed for the 
breeding ewes. And it is very common to turn the lambs on 
the stubbles to eat down the sprouts of the scattered grain. 

Turnips, of suitable kinds, sown broadcast on the inverted 
prairie sward, would be likely to do extremely well on soils 
so rich and deep and so destitute of weeds ; and they would 
furnish cheap and admirable fall feed for sheep of all ages. 

Prairie Management in Winter. — In regions where 
the pasturage is perennial, as in parts of Texas, and in 
latitudes much higher north on our Pacific coast, the winter 
management of sheep does not vary sufficiently from the 
summer management to require separate description. The 
sheep are daily driven out on the prairie in the same way, 



PKAIEIE MANAGEMENT IN WINTER. 257 

though they are necessarily driven further. They generally 
occupy the same folds or yards at nights — with no shelter 
whatever overhead. The utility of some shelter and some 
artificial feed in winter, even in such climates, has been 
already urged. 

For the purpose of giving a clearer view of the winter 
climate of the Prairie States, and particularly of Texas, I 
shall devote some pages to the subject in another place. * 

Prairie management in regions as far north as Central 
Illinois, requires as much artificial preparation for winter as 
is required in New York or Pennsylvania. Should those 
preparations be the same ? 

He who embarks extensively in sheep husbandry in the 
older States must buy a large amount of comparatively high 
priced land, clear up the forest, fence his land carefully, sow 
pastures and meadows, build barns for winter storage and for 
shelter — or buy all these things already fitted to his hand — 
before he is ready to purchase a flock of sheep to commence 
his business. All this requires the outlay of much capital. 
The prairie sheep farmer can commence operations without 
buying anything but his sheep. Or, if he does not choose to 
be a pure nomad, he can buy acres for less than the annual 
interest of acres of the ordinary grazing lands of the old 
States. His principal necessary capital is a decent knowledge 
of his business, and enough energy to persevere in it. 

Thus have started a large majority of the pioneer sheep 
farmers of the new States. The new settler builds a little log 
house, for himself and wife to sleep in — a rail pen covered 
with poles and prairie-grass, for his "team" and his coav, if 
he is so fortunate as to own such luxuries — a high yard 
for a fold, and then he is ready to commence wool growing ! 
And in ten years he can count more sheep, and sometimes 
more dollars worth of property, than his eastern competitor, 
who commenced with everything prepared to his hand. The 
rail pen gives place to the stable, and the uncovered fold yard 
is succeeded by the fold yard and spacious sheds. Fine fields 
of domestic grass for spring and fall feed, and of luxuriant 
corn for winter feed, surround the comfortable farm house. 
Noble flooks of thousands are driven up nightly by his boys 
and by the " hired men," — who, in five years more, will be 
flock-masters themselves ! 

Are such men to be told that they ought not to commence 



* See Appendix F. 



258 "WINTER FEEDING ON TUE PRAIRIES. 

sheep husbandry on the prairies until they have this or that 
special preparation for it? The sooner the prairie wool 
grower can surround himself with all the convenient appli- 
ances for his occupation, the better: but he acts entirely 
wisely in not waiting for thern! 

Winter Feed. — Hay made from the domestic grasses — 
the " tame grasses " as they are called in the West — or clover, 
is but little known on the prairies. The wild grasses make 
sufficiently good hay, but like the preceding, it probably, in 
most situations, has a cheaper substitute in Indian corn. The 
remarkable adaptation of most of our prairie soils to this crop 
is well known. Eighty bushels of it to the acre would be 
regarded as a heavy crop anywhere — but an extraordinary 
one nowhere, on the first - class virgin soils. The stalks 
properly cut and secured, yield nearly double the feed per 
acre of the small varieties cultivated in the grazing regions 
of the Eastern States. Its cultivation, too, on the mellow, 
weedless, prairie soils can be performed vastly more easily 
and cheaply. With two-horse corn planters, and two-horse 
corn plows or cultivators, it is estimated that one man can 
properly take care of fifty acres of it. It should be cut up 
before the leaves are injured by frost, and placed in shocks, 
where it remains until it is drawn out to be fed to the sheep. 
It is drawn out twice a day and scattered on the ground. 
One active man, with a suitable wagon and team, and devoting 
his whole time to it, can feed about two thousand sheep. A 
firm, sodded field of domestic grass is very desirable to feed 
on, instead of one of wild grass, which soon becomes poached 
and muddy in wet weather. If the field is large enough to 
change the feeding places often, very little of the corn is 
wasted. Some tanners, in place of cutting up the corn and 
drawing it out in this way, leave it standing on the hill, and 
fold the sheep on it a couple of hours twice a day ; but it is 
a wasteful mode for the frost-bitten fodder is much less 
valuable. 

The sheep are generally wintered in the feeding fields 
without shelter, and even the farmers who have sheds do not 
put their flocks into them except in very stormy nights, and 
at lambing time. Those who have a sufficient, number of 
feeding fields divide the sheep in the beginning of winter into 
three or four lots. When this is impracticable, the lambs are 
merely separated from the flock, and all the rest run together. 
This last is very objectionable management, as it leaves the 



SHEDS OR STABLES ON THE PRAIRIES. 259 

weaker and smaller to be pushed about and driven from the 
choicer portions of the feed by the strong, heavy wethers. 
Most flock-masters aim, however, to draft occasionally from 
the flock any that become poor or feeble, and to make some 
separate arrangement for them. 

The object of the prairie farmer is to have his sheep 
consume as much corn as practicable ; for it is more profitable 
to convert it into animal products than to sell it at ten cents 
a bushel.* A good sized grade Merino fed exclusively on it 
will consume and waste from three to three and a half or 
four bushels during the winter, and the stalks on which it 
grew. If the corn is good, the proportion of ears to stalks is 
greater than it should be for the benefit of the sheep. Some 
farmers provide for this by making enough "tame hay" to 
give their sheep one feed a day ; some make a quantity of 
prairie hay ; and others, instead of burning their wheat straw, 
according to a prevalent, wasteful method, thrash and stack 
it in the feeding lot, so that the sheep can get to it at will, or 
so it can be conveniently fed to them when necessary. If the 
straw should be slightly brined when stacked, and the sheep be 
fed salt in no other way, it would prove an acceptable 
fodder for them, and would be sufficiently nutritious to meet 
their wants when accompanied with so much corn. 

Sheds or Stables. — As has been seen, these are also 
mostly for storms and for lambing time, because the Western 
firmer feels that at the high prices for lumber which prevail 
in almost all our prairie regions, and with the high price and 
actual scarcity of the labor necessary for housing winter feed, 
he can not afford to build regular sheep barns with room for 
in-door feeding for his great flocks, or to bestow the time 
necessary for housing his feed. Besides, his favorite corn 
feed would not bear housing in great masses without injury. 
Well shocked, it winters in the field without any serious loss. 

Accordingly, the prairie sheep shed is but one story high, 
and generally not more than seven or eight feet between the 
ground and the eaves. It is made with a roof pitching both 
ways ; is generally, at the best sheep establishments, closed 
up all round ; and is long and comparatively narrow, so that 
by a proper arrangement of fences, portions of it can be made 
accessible to different fields. The stable room required by 
sheep has already been considered. 



* Or to have it consumed for fuel, as has repeatedly been 'done, because it made 
the cheapest fuel attainable in badly wooded regions. Will this fact be credited in 
Europe ! 



200 SHEEP ESTABLISHMENT OX THE PRAIRIES. 

"Water. — Snow on the surface of the ground is neither 
very regular nor very abundant in many of the prairie regions 
— and, as already said, many of these regions are very 
deficient in running water. For a sheep fed exclusively on 
dry feed, water is indispensable; and one fed highly on dry 
corn would undoubtedly require it in extra quantities. On 
very many prairies there are frequent sloughs which are dry 
in summer, but which, by deep, broad ditches, can be made 
to supply abundant water in winter. It would be worse than 
folly to locate the headquarters of a sheep farm where surface 
water of no kind is available, and where it can not be 
obtained abundantly by wells ; and even wells are a very poor 
resort, when, by going elsewhere and further, a running 
stream, or spring, or permanent surface water in any other 
form, can be obtained. * 

Location of Sheep Establishment. — The most desirable 
place for locating a prairie sheep establishment is on the 
banks of some permanent stream, where the land is high, 
rolling, and gravelly, the grass abundant and of a fine quality, 
small clumps of timber frequent, and a railroad to market 
near by ! An undesirable one is a low, wet, level plain — or 
a dry one without water or timber — remote from all present 
or prospective avenues to market. 

Note. — While these sheets are going through the press, 
as I have mentioned in a preceding note, valuable articles on 
Prairie Sheep Husbandry by Hon. I. B. Grinnell, of Iowa, 
and Mr. S. P. Boardman, of Illinois, have made their appear- 
ance in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture — 
and also a very discriminating and able paper of a more 
general character, abounding in the most valuable statistics, 
entitled " Condition and Prospects of Sheep Husbandry in 
the United States." I much regret that they did not appear 
in time to allow me to quote their confirmatory testimony on 
several subjects treated in this volume. 

* Artesian wells may become available at some future day when the country is 
far more thickly settled and land far higher priced. From ordinary wells, water is 
sometimes raised at no great expense for stock, by means of pumps worked by small 
wind mills. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF SHEEP. -THE HEAD. 

comparatively small number op american" sheep dis- 
eases low type of american sheep diseases 

anatomy of the sheep the skeleton the skull 

the horns and their diseases the teeth 

swelled head sore face swelled lips inflam- 
mation of the eye. 

Comparatively Small Number of American Sheep 
Diseases. — Many of the diseases of sheep which are 
described as comparatively common in Europe, are unknown 
in the United States ; and this remark applies particularly to 
those which have proved most destructive in the former. 

I have owned sheep the entire period of my life — a little 
over half a century — my flock numbering at alternating 
periods from hundreds to thousands. I have for considerably 
more than half of this period been constantly concerned in 
their practical management, and a deeply interested observer 
of them. For more than twenty years I have been engaged 
in a constant and extensive correspondence in respect to 
sheep and their diseases, with flock-masters in various portions 
of the United States, and have been in the frequent habit of 
inspecting flocks of every size and description, and I never 
yet have witnessed or had satisfactory proof brought home 
to me of the existence of a single case of hydatid, water on 
the brain, palsy, rot, small pox, malignant inflammatory fever, 
(La Maladie de Sologne,) blain or inflammation of the 
cellular tissue about the tongue, enteritis or inflammation of 
the coats of the intestines, acute dropsy or red-water, acute 
inflammation of the lungs, or of a whole host of other 
formidable maladies described by every European writer on 
the diseases of sheep. I do not aver that they never occur in 
the United States, but the above facts would seem to show 
their occurrence must at least be very rare, or confined to 
localities where they are not recognized. 



262 TYPE OF AMERICAN SHEEP DISEASES. 

To correct or confirm my own impressions on this 
subject, I addressed letters, a few months since, to a large 
number of highly intelligent and experienced flock-masters 
residing in various States, and in situations differing Avidely 
in respect to climate, soil, elevation, etc. — asking them what 
diseases sheep were subject to in their respective regions, and 
what remedies were most successfully employed for their cure. 
The spirit and substance of nearly all the replies are contained 
in the following extract from a letter of my off-hand friend, 
Mr. Theodore C. Peters, of Darien, New York : 

" You ask me for our sheep diseases and for the remedies. 
After years of experience I discarded all mediciues except 
those to cure hoof-rot and scab ; and I finally cured those 
diseases cheapest by selling the sheep. An ounce of preven- 
tion is worth a pound of cure. If sheep are well kept 
summer and winter, not over-crowded in pastures, and kept 
under dry and well ventilated covers in winter, and housed 
when the cold, fall rains come on, there will be no necessity 
for remedies of any kind. If not so handled, all the remedies 
in the world won't help them, and the sooner a careless, 
shiftless man loses his sheep the better. They are out of their 
misery and are not spreading contagious diseases among the 
neighboring flocks." 

When to the two maladies above named, (hoof-rot and 
scab,) are added the obscure one described at page 204, a 
very fatal but infrequent one in the spring, ordinarily termed 
grub-in-the-head, catarrh or cold, colic, parturient fever, (the 
last quite rare and mostly confined to English sheep,) and the 
few minor diseases of sheep and lambs mentioned under the 
heads of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Management — 
we have almost the. entire list with which the American sheep 
farmer is familiar. All the diseases named do not, in my 
opinion, cut off annually two per cent, of well fed and really 
well managed grown sheep ! Nothing is more common than 
for years to pass by in the small flocks of our careful breeders, 
with scarcely a solitary instance of disease in them. I 
have not space to offer any conjectures as to the causes of an 
immunity frpm disease so remarkable, in comparison with the 
condition of England, France and Germany, in the same 
particular. 

Low Type of American Sheep Diseases. — A discrimi- 
nating English veterinary writer, Mr. Spooner, has remarked 
that owing to its greatly weaker muscular and vascular 



TYPE OF AMERICAN SHEEP DISEASES. 263 

structure, the diseases of the sheep are much less likely to 
take an inflammatory type than those of the horse, (and he 
might have added the ox,) and that the character of its 
maladies is generally that of debility. * Mr. Spooner wrote 
with his eye on the mutton sheep of England — constantly 
forced forward by the most nutritious food, in order to attain 
early maturity and excessive fatness. Still more strongly, 
then, do his remarks apply to the ordinarily fed wool- 
producing sheep of the United States. I long ago remarked 
that the depletory treatment, by bleeding and cathartics, 
resorted to in so many of the diseases of sheep in England, is 
inapplicable and dangerous here. The American Sheep, 
which has been kept in the common way, sinks from the 
outset, or after a mere transient flash of inflammatory action ; 
and in any stage of its maladies, active depletion is likely to 
lead to fatal prostration. 

It is not purposed here to enter upon any explanation of 
the anatomy of the sheep, further than is necessary to give 
a general view of the principal internal structures which 
determine the form, discharge some of the principal animal 
functions, and become the seats or subjects of disease. And 
in treating of maladies, I shall aim to adapt both the language 
and the prescriptions to the degree of knowledge already 
possessed on the subject by ordinary practical men, instead 
of learned veterinarians. 

On the next page is given an illustration and description 
of the skeleton of a shee]}, and on the following page the 
skull of a hornless sheep is represented and described. 



* Spooner on Sheep, pp. 269, 271. 



264 



STRUCTURE OF THE SHEEP. 




SKELETON OF THE SHEEP. 



The Head. 

1. The inter-maxillary bone. 

2. The nasal bones. 

3. The upper j;nv. 

4. The union of the nasal and upper jaw 

bones. 

5. The union of the malar and lachrymal 

bones. 

6. The orbits of the eye. 

7. The frontal bone. 
9. The lower jaw. 

10. The incisor teeth, or nippers. 

11. The molars, or grinders. 

The Trunk. 

1. 1. The ligament of the neck, support- 
ing the head. 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The seven vertebra?, or 
bones of the neck. 

1 — 13. The thirteen vertebrae, or bones 
of the back. 

1—0. The six vertebra? of the loins. 

7. The sacral bone. 

8. The bones of the tail, varying in dif- 

ferent breeds from 12 to 21. 

9. The haunch and pelvis. 

1—8. The eight true ribs with their car- 
tilages. 
9—13. The live false ribs, or those that 
are not attached to the breast-bone. 
14. The breast-bone. 



The Fore -Leg. 

1. The scapula, or shoulder-blade. 

2. The humerus, bone of the arm, or low- 

er part of the shoulder. 

3. The radius, or bone of the fore-arm. 

4. The ulna, or elbow. 

5. The knee, with its different bones. 

0. The metacarpal, or shank-bones — the 

larger bones of the leg. 

7. A rudiment of the smaller metacarpal. 

8. One of the sessamoid bones. 

9. The two first bones of the foot — the 

pasterns. 
10. The proper bones of the foot. 

The Hind-Leg. 

1. The thigh-bone. 

2. The stifle-joint and its bone — the 

patella. 

3. The tibia, or bone of the upper part of 

the leg. 

4. The point of the hock. 

5. The other bones of the hock. 

6. The metatarsal bone, or bone of the 

hind-leg. 

7. Rudiment "of the small metatarsal. 

8. A sessamoid bone. 

9. The two first bones of the foot — the 

pasterns. 
10. The proper bone of the foot. 



THE HORNS AND THEIR DISEASES. 



265 




SKULL OF A HORNLESS SHEEP. 

1. The Occipital bone. 

2. The parietal bones, the suture having disappeared. 

3. The squamous portions of the temporal bone. 

4. The meatus auditorius, or bony opening into the ear. 

5. The frontal bones, 
(j. The openings through which blood-vessels pass to supply 

the forehead. 

7. The bony orbits of the eye. 

8. The zygomatic or molar bones. 

9. The lachrymal bones. 

10. The bones of the nose. 

11. The upper jaw bone. 

12. The foramen, through which the nerve and blood-vessela 
pass to supply the lower part of the face. 

13. The nasal processes of the intermaxillary bones. 

14. The pelatine processes. 

15. The intermaxillary bone, supporting the cartilaginous pad, 
instead of containing teeth. 

The Horns and their Diseases. — Whether sheep 
should be bred to have horns or not depends upon the taste 
of the owner. In the abstract, they are, undoubtedly, a 
wholly useless appendage, render the lamb more difficult of 
parturition, and in their massive proportions on the head of 
the male Merino, cause him to be, however quiet his temper, a 
dangerous associate to breeding ewes in advanced stages of 
pregnancy. Yet I know no leading Merino breeder who 
would use a polled or hornless ram, any sooner than would a 
Down or Leicester breeder use a ram having horns ! Each 
clings to the characteristics of his breed. Most Merino 
breeders, however, object to horns on ewes — though very 
small ones, having but one convolution, are not uncommon. 
I have never seen it remarked that the different families of 
Merinos in Spain exhibited any different characteristics in 
their horns — but the American Infantados and Paulars, as 
now modified, generally do so. In the former, the convolu- 
tions are nearer together, and the first one frequently passes 
down very close to the head and neck — in a few instances 
presses so closely on them that, in the case of valuable ram 
lambs, the horns are artificially spread apart by means of an 
iron brace placed between them (over the back side of the 
head) which can be lengthened by a screw as the horns give 
way to the pressure. In the Paular, the horns are usually 
quite divergent, and frequently of great size. * 

* The fact that the Silesians, which are deep in Infantado blood, have also the 
close or convergent horn, would go to show that it is a family peculiarity. I owned a 
Paular ram two or three years 'since, which at two years old, measured three feet 
between the tips of his horns. He died before he was three years old ; and a person 
sawed off his horns so as to take that portion of the skull covered by the base of each. 
He subsequently boiled them to detach them from the bones. They have lain dry two 
years. Weighed to-day, with the inside bones, they weigh 6 lbs. 1 
12 



2<56 



TEETH OF THE SHEEP. 



The proper mode of managing horns at shearing, was 
mentioned at page 189. I am not aware that they are subject 
to any diseases except those caused by fracture. They are 
sometimes broken in fighting ; and I have seen an old ram 
which had one knocked clean from his head by the charge of 
a ram from behind, while another occupied his attention in 
front. The bleeding is very considerable in such cases, but a 
tarred rag securely bound over the part to keep away flies 
and irritating substances is all that is necessary. 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 




Fig. 4. Fig. 5. 

TEETH OF THE SHEEP. 



Fig. 6. 



The Teeth. — The sheep has thirty-two teeth — eight 
incisors in front of lower jaw, and six molars on each side in 
the upper and lower jaw. The lamb at birth has two incisor 
teeth visible, or pressing through the gums. Usually before 
it is a month old it has eight comparatively short, narrow 
ones, as in Fig. 1. At about a year old, though sometimes 
not until the fourteenth or sixteenth month, the two central 
"lamb teeth" are shed and replaced by two "broad teeth," 
which gradually attain their full size. The sheep is then 
termed a yearling, or "yearling past." Two lamb teeth 
continue to be shed annually and replaced by broad teeth, 
until the sheep has eight incisors of second growth, when it is 
termed "full mouthed." Fig. 2 represents "the mouth" of a 
yearling past ; Fig. 3 of a two-year-old past ; Fig. 4 of a three- 
year-old past, and Fig. 6 of a four-year-old past.* Fig. 5 is a 
back or inside view of the teeth of a three-year-old, showing 
the narrow and dwindled appearance of the two last lamb 

* The English, counting from the periods when each new pair of incisors become 
fully developed, usually speak of two broad teeth as indicating a two-year-old, four a 
three-year-old, six a four-year-old, and eight a five-year-old. 



TEETH OF THE SHEEP. 267 

teeth, before they are shed ; and they frequently, as in this 
cut, stand so far behind the third pair of incisors that they 
can not be seen, on looking into the mouth in front. Conse- 
quently, unless the broad incisors are counted, the sheep is 
often mistaken for a full-mouthed one. 

The teeth afford the most decisive test there is of the age of 
a sheep, until it is four years old, though there is sometimes 
a variation of a number of months or even a year in their 
development. High kept and rapidly grown sheep acquire 
their second teeth earlier. 

When perfect, the incisors are sharp, rounded on the edge, 
as in the cuts ; a little concave without and convex within (or 
gouge-shaped ;) and they project forward, so that with the 
iirm, elastic pad on the upper jaw with which they are 
brought into contact, they are capable of taking up the 
smallest body. They will not only crop the shortest grass, 
but scoop up its very roots. A sheep yarded on unpulled 
turnips usually scoops out the centers of them so far as they 
are in the ground, leaving little more than the mere skin of 
the sides and bottoms, remaining unbroken like cups in 
the soil. 

At six years old the incisors of the Merino begin to 
diminish in breadth and lose their fan-like shape and position. 
At seven they become long and narrow, stand about perpen- 
dicular with respect to each other, and have lost their 
rounded, cutting edges. At eight they are still narrower, 
and their outer ends begin to converge considerably toward 
the middle. At nine the convergence is still greater, the teeth 
are not thicker than very small straws, and are very long, 
particularly the middle ones. At ten these appearances have 
increased and the teeth are becoming quite loose. At about 
this period of life the teeth begin to drop out, though 
frequently all are retained until twelve.* The sheep is then 
called "broken mouthed." In two or three years after 
beginning to lose them, all the incisors are usually gone but 
one or two. These should be pulled by a pair of nippers, as 
they prevent the sheep from cropping short grass, f The 

* It is stated by Dillon, in his Travels in Spain, 1779, (quoted by Youatt,) that 
"the teeth of the Spanish ram do not fall out until the animal is eight years 
old ; whereas the ewes, from the delicacy of their frame, or from other causes, 
lose theirs at five." These are undoubtedly the loose assertions of a misinformed 
traveler: at least, they do not approximate to accuracy in respect to the American 
Merino. 

t Mr. Youatt is clearly mistaken, however, !in saying " that if any of the teeth 
are loose they should be extracted," (vide p. 5.) All the incisors are frequently 
loose, to a considerable degree, a year or two before any of them drop out, and the 



268 SWELLED HEAD. 

gum of the lower jaw hardens after their removal, so that it 
becomes, in a measure, a substitute for the lost incisors, in 
separating their food. The molars, though shortened and 
Worn, are never shed, so that mastication continues complete. 
Old breeding ewes often live, thrive, and raise good lambs 
three or four years after ceasing to have any front teeth. 

English sheep become broken-mouthed from three to four 
years earlier — the difference about corresponding with the 
difference in the longevity of the races. Sheep of all kinds 
differ not only as between individuals, but between flocks in the 
period of losing their teeth. If fed uncut and dirty roots, 
they lose them much earlier. The prying action of the 
incisors, as they are employed in scooping out a turnip, for 
example — particularly if it be partly frozen — or the 
obstruction of a bit of gravel (which often finds its way from 
the tap roots even among cut turnips) between an incisor 
and the pad above it, not unfrequently causes a loose one to 
be detached, or a comparatively firm one to snap off. 

Swelled Head. — The head of the sheep sometimes 
becomes swollen from causes Avhich are not very well under- 
stood. I do not know of any special or characteristic disease 
among sheep which produces this effect.* It is occasionally 
heard of in this country — but I have never seen it, or heard 
its symptoms accurately described. According to Mr. Hogg, 
it appears in Scotland. An abscess is formed and breaks, and 
the sheep then speedily recovers unless too much reduced by 
the discharge. In England it is sometimes occasioned, Mr. 
Youatt thinks, from the sting of a venomous reptile or insect, 
in which case, he says, the wool should be cut off round the 
wound, the parts washed with Avarm water, olive oil well 
rubbed in, and small doses of hartshorn diluted with water, 
administered internally — "half a scruple of the hartshorn in 
an ounce of water every hour." 

Mr. Youatt conjectures that the Scotch form of the disease 
may arise from eating poisonous plants, or from a species 
of catarrh or influenza, f To these causes, and to the last 
especially, I have been disposed to attribute such instances of 

sheep remains capable not only of cropping grass, but of scooping out a turnip in the 
manner already mentioned. Nor should all be pulled when only one or two drop out. 
The judgment of the shepherd must be his guide in the matter; but as long as, say 
five incisors remain together or press together, it is not usually best to remove them. 

* I should except blain, but this disease has not appeared in the United States. 

i Youatt on Sheep, p. 371. 



SORE FACE. 269 

the disease as I have heard of in the United States. In this 
case, it should be treated like catarrh, (which see.) 

Sore Face. — The faces of sheep sometimes become so 
sore, in the summer, that the hair comes off. This is usually 
attributed either to coming in contact with, or eating St. 
John's- Wort, {Hypericum perforatum?)* Mr. Morrell states, 
in the American Shepherd, that the " irritation of the skin " 
will sometimes extend " over the whole body and legs of the 
sheep ;" that "if eaten in too large quantities it produces violent 
inflammation of the bowels, and is frequently fatal to lambs, 
and sometimes to adults ;" that " its effects, when inflamma- 
tion is produced internally, are very singular ;" that he " has 
witnessed the most fantastic capers of sheep in this situation, 
and once a lamb, while running, described a circle with all 
the precision of a circus horse," and that " this was continued 
until it fell from exhaustion." He recommends, if there are 
symptoms of internal inflammation, that tar be administered, 
but says that "simply hog's lard is used frequently with 
success." He recommends that the sheep should be removed 
to pastures free of the weed and salted freely ; and remarks 
that " it is said that salt, if given often to sheep, is an effectual 
guard against the poisonous properties of the weed." 

Mr. Morrell does not state how he traced these extensive, 
and especially these internal effects, to the consumption of St. 
John's -Wort. On consulting several works on Botany, 
and Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, lying before me, I do not, 
with the exception below, find it mentioned as a poisonous or 
noxious plant in any of them. Dr. Dunglison characterizes it 
as an aromatic and astringent, and states that an infusion of 
its flowers in olive oil is a vulnerary — or, is useful in 
curing wounds. 

On the other hand, in Dr. John Torry's " Flora of the 
State of New York," (in the "Natural History of New 
York,") occurs the following remarks on the properties of 
this plant : — " This pernicious weed is generally believed, in 
this country, to be the most common cause of ' slabbers 'f in 
horses and horned cattle ; and likewise to cause sores on 
their skin, especially on animals whose noses and feet are 
white, and whose skin is thin and tender. Dr. Darlington 
remai'ks that the dew which collects on the plant appears to 

* I gave this as the cause in Sheep Husbandry in the South, p. 271, but I did not 
suppose it was eaten by sheep. 

t I had supposed that honor was more particularly assigned to lobelia (L. inflala.) 



270 EFFECT OF ST. JOIIx's - WORT. 

become acrid. He has seen the backs of white cows covered 
with sores wherever the bushy extremity of their tails has 
been applied, after draggling through the St. John's -Wort. 
Dr. J. M. Bigelovv, of Ohio, states that lie has known a high 
degree of inflammation of the mucous lining of the mouth 
and fauces produced by eating a few of the fresh leaves. It 
was formerly in considerable repute for its medicinal virtues, 
but was chiefly employed as a balsamic for wounds." * 

What should induce sheep to eat a noxious plant which 
they are familiar with, and which is excessively acrid to the 
taste, it is difficult to conjecture. I doubt whether they do 
so. Indeed, I doubt whether it so often affects sheep in any 
May as I formerly believed, and as many persons continue to 
believe. It grows in most of my hill pastures ; and having 
ceased to fear it and consequently to make special efforts for 
its extirpation, it being a hardy perennial-rooted plant, has 
increased so that it is readily found. Within a week of this 
writing f I have observed abundant plants of it in a field 
where I have kept one hundred and eighty ewes and lambs 
since they were first turned out in the spring, and not one of 
them has been in the least degree affected by it. I never saw 
a case where the sheep were affected beyond a soreness of the. 
face : and I do not think I have seen even such a case within 
fifteen years. All my recollections of it go back to the. days 
of the feeble little Saxon sheep, which were always peeling 
on some excuse or other ! 

I have some Short-Horn cows, too, with white noses, white 
spots on their backs, and long tails to draggle over the St: 
John's- Wort in their pasture, both when wet and dry; and 
none of them are affected by it. While I am not prepared to 
deny that it sometimes causes sores both on cattle and 
sheep, I am not disposed to concede much to mere popular 
belief on the subject Avithout better proof than I have yet 
seen adduced. \ Popular belief in France and Germany, says 
Loudon, cause the people "to gather it with great ceremony 
on St. John's Day, and hang it in their windows, as a charm 
against storms, thunder and evil spirits — mistaking the 
meaning of some medical writers who have fancifully given 
this plant the name of Faga Dcemonnm,§ from a supposition 



* Flora of New York, Vol. 1, p. 87. 
t August, 1863. 

t I intended to make some experiments in regard to its effects, preparatory to 
writing this article, but have not had time to attend to it. 
§ Flight of evil spirits or demons. 



SWELLED LIPS. 271 

that it was good in maniacal and hypochondriacal disorders. 
In Scotland it was formerly carried about as a charm against 
witchcraft and enchantment ! " ' 

From whatever cause it arises, the sore face ascribed to 
the effects of St. John's-Wort is readily cured by sulphur 
ointment, composed of sulphur and hog's lard. If, as Mr. 
Morrell supposes, it produces " violent inflammation of the 
bowels," I should not like to trust either to tar or lard, 
but would resort to the treatment appropriate in the case 
of vegetable poisons. (See Poisons.) 

Swelled Lips. — Sheep are sometimes quite suddenly 
affected with sore lips in the winter — and I think this oftenest 
occurs to the lambs of the preceding spring. The lips 
become swollen to several times their natural thickness, are 
hard, crack open, and are so stiff and sore that the animal 
eats with difficulty. This disease visited a flock owned by 
me five or six years since, and included nearly the entire 
number. It promptly disappeared on smearing their lips with 
tar rendered thin and soft by butter and slightly mixed with 
sulphur. A neighbor's sheep which were thus attacked, were 
simply, on my suggestion, smeared over the lips with pot- 
grease ; and it likewise immediately relieved them. There 
appeared to be no observable constitutional disease in either 
case. Several other such attaoks and cures have occurred 
within flocks which I am familiar with. 

The causes of this affection are unknown. Some attribute 
it to St. John's-Wort, or other noxious weeds in the hay — 
but, in my own case, it can not possibly be explained in this 
way. A tun of the hay would have scarcely contained a 
handful of St. John's-Wort, and it contained no other weed 
even suspected of being noxious — while the malady was 
simultaneously exhibited by nearly every animal in the same 
flock. The hay, however, came from a new field, and 
contained an excessive quantity of bull-thistles. Whether 
the dry prickles of these had anything to do in producing the 
effect on the lips, I am unable to say. I have occasionally 
seen it stated in Agricultural papers that a disease of which 
swelled lips are one of the most prominent and characteristic 
symptoms, has resulted mortally. I think it must be a 
different malady from the one under consideration. I have 
never witnessed any instance of swelled lips which I think 
would have been likely to produce death without the applica- 
tion of any l'emedy. 



272 DISEASES OF THE EYE. 

Inflammation of the Eye.— The eyes of sheep are subject 
to few diseases, in our country. The only serious one I have 
ever seen — and that is quite rare — is simple ophthalmia,* 
characterized by redness of the eye, and its appendages, 
with intolerance of light and a copious flow of tears.^ It is 
generally, however, attended with but moderate inflam- 
mation, and if neglected, its worst and that by no means the 
most common result is blindness, almost invariably confined 
to one eye. It might prove more serious among high fed 
mutton sheep. Mr. Grove, the best practical shepherd of his 
day, in our country, used to blow red chalk into the diseased 
eye.' " Others squirt into it tobacco juice, from those ever 
ready reservoirs of this nauseous fluid, their mouths. Conceiv- 
ing it a matter of humanity to do something, I have in some 
instances drawn blood from under the eye, bathed the eye m 
warm water, and occasionally with a weak solution ot the 
sulphate of zinc combined with tincture of opium. These 
applications diminish the pain and accelerate the cure." \ 

* There is occasionally a case of cataract. Also see Art. Rabies in this volume, 
t Sheep Husbandry in the South, p. 239. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ANATOMY AND DISEASES OP THE SHEEP'S HEAD, 
CONTINUED. 

SECTION OF SHEEP'S HEAD GRUB IN THE HEAD HYDATID 

ON THE BRAIN "WATER ON THE BRAIN APOPLEXY 

INFLAMMATION OF THE BRAIN TETANUS OR LOCKED JAW 

EPILEPSY PALSY RABIES. 




SECTION OF SHEEP S HEAD. 



1. The nasal bone. 

2. The upper jaw bone. 

3. The intermaxillary bone, the fore part 

of which supports the pad, against 
which the incisor teeth shut. 

4. 4. The frontal sinuses, or cavities. 

5. The sinus of the horn, communicating 

with frontal sinus, disclosed by re- 
moving a section of the base and 
bone of the horn. 

6. The parietal bone. 

7. The frontal bone. 

8. A vertical section of the brain. 



9. A vertical section of the cerebellum. 

a. The cineritious portion of the brain. 

b. The medullary portion of the brain. 

10. The ethmoid bone, with its cells. 

11. The cribriform or perforated plate of 

the ethmoid bone, pierced with 
numerous holes for the passage of 
the olfactory nerve. 

12. The development of the lower cell of 

ethmoid bone. 

13. The superior turbinated bone. 

14. The inferior turbinated bone. 
17. The sphenoid bone. 



Grub in the Head. — In the months of July and August 
sheep are often seen gathered in dense clumps with their 
heads turned inward and their noses held down to the 
ground. If driven away, they run without raising their 
heads, or rapidly thrust them down again, as if they had 
some very urgent motive for retaining them in that position. 
12* 




274 THE GAD-FLY AND ITS LARVA. 

Occasionally they stamp or strike violently with their fore- 
feet near their noses as if an enemy, invisible to the spectator, 
were assailing them at that point. It is the 
(Estrus ovis, or gad-fly of the sheep, attempting 
to deposite its eggs within their nostrils. "The 
head and corslet" of this insect, says Mr. 
Youatt, "taken together, are as long as the 
body ; and that is composed of five rings, tiger- 
colored on the back, with some small points, and sheep gad-fly. 
larger patches of deep, brown color. The belly is of nearly 
the same color, but has only one large circular spot on the 
center of each of the rings. The length of the wings is 
nearly equal to that of the body, which they almost entirely 
cover. They are prettily striped and marked." * 

If the fly succeeds in depositing its eggs within the 
nostrils of a sheep, they are immediately hatched by the 
warmth and moisture, and the larvae or young grubs, crawl 
up the nose finding their way to the sinuses, where, by means 
of the tentacula or hooks which grow from the sides of their 
mouths, they attach themselves to the membrane lining those 
cavities, and there remain feeding on its mucus until the 
following year. As the minute worm ascends the nose, the 
sheep appears to be distracted with apprehension. It dashes 
wildly about the field, stamping, snorting and tossing its head. 

Fig. 1 in the annexed cut, exhibits the larva or grub about 
half grown. It is then white, except two brown spots near 
the tail. Fig. 2 represents it of full size. The rings, and 
particularly those nearest the tail, are now dark brown. 




THE "GRUB" OR LARVA OF THE GAD-FLY. 

Each ring has darker spots, and below them are others, as 
seen in Fig. 2. Fig. 3 exhibits a full grown larva on its back 
— the minute dots between the belly rings representing small 
red spines, the points of which turn backwards. 

The larva, after remaining in the sinuses through the 



* Those who wish a further description of this insect, will find more on the 
subject in Mr. Youatt's work on sheep, — and especially in Mr. Bracy Clark's mon- 
ograph of the oestrus ovis. 



"gkub in the head." 275 

winter and early part of the ensuing spring, abandons them 
as the warm weather advances. It crawls down the nose, 
again producing great irritation and excitement ; drops on 
the ground ; rapidly burrows into it ; assumes the form of a 
chrysalis ; and finally again hatches forth a perfect fly. 

Many French and English writers consider these larvae, 
while in the heads of sheep, the causes of most serious evils 
and of frequent death. On the other hand, Mr. Bracy Clark 
and Mr. Youatt are not only disposed to doubt this, but they 
even suggest that these parasites may be placed where they 
are for the benefit of the sheep, particularly those in high 
condition — to save them from determination of blood to the 
head by establishing counter irritation ! 

This is as far-fetched as a conclusion, as is the reasoning 
on which it is founded. Mr. Youatt declares : — " It is incom- 
patible with that wisdom and goodness that are more and 
more evident in proportion as the phenomena of nature are 
closely examined, that the destined residence of the cestrus 
ovis should be productive of continued inconvenience or 
disease." * Had Mr. Youatt forgotten that the " destined 
residence " of the scab acarus, of the tick, of the common 
maggot, etc., are all productive of inconvenience, disease and 
death to the sheep? 

If a sheep dies in the spring of the year, fat or poor, 
suddenly or lingeringly, with one or another set of symptoms, 
the popular belief generally traces the malady to "grub in the 
head." It is the convenient name which covers all the 
unknown fatal maladies of that season of the year. This 
probably arises from the fact that on making what may be 
teraied the farmer's autopsy — viz., on splitting open the body 
and head of the dead sheep with an axe — the most striking 
deviation, if not the only one, from what is supposed to be 
the natural situation of things, which is discovered in the five 
minutes scrutiny, is a quantity of large, fat, ill-looking worms 
in the cavities of the head : and our rapid practitioner at once 
decides that these are cause enough for any disease ! His 
theory is that the " grub " bores through the walls which 
separate the nasal cavities or the sinuses from the brain, and 
that they produce death by attacking the latter organ. I 
have been triumphantly shown the cribriform plate of the 
ethmoid bone (see 11, in Fig. on page 273,) with its natural 
perforations for the passage of the olfactory nerve, in proof 

* Youatt on Sheep, p. 368. 



276 "grub in the head." 

that the "grubs" had already "got small holes opened to the 
brain," when their further operations were, it was supposed, 
suspended by the death of the subject ! 

I have had a singularly limited experience with any 
diseases which could reasonably be attributed to the presence 
of these parasites, and therefore do not feel myself at all well 
qualified to judge of their actual effects on the sheep. That 
want of experience is a strong proof of itself, that resulting 
maladies are not as frequent by any means as is popularly 
supposed. And knowing, as I do, that other and wholly 
dissimilar diseases are habitually termed " grub in the head," 
I can entertain no doubt that the extent of the injuries thus 
inflicted is enormously exaggerated. 

Influenced by these latter considerations, and by the 
strong counter testimony of such really able veterinarians as 
Messrs. Clark and Youatt, and the silence on the subject of 
Mr. Spooner and some other modern writers, I was formerly 
led to doubt whether the larvae of the oestrus ovis ever did 
more in the sheep's head than effect a degree of temporary 
irritation of the lining membranes, which might produce 
serious inconvenience when acting in concert with the 
inflammation already established by catarrhal or other 
cerebral affections, but which never caused death. Again 
reminding the reader that I speak from a very limited 
personal knowledge of the disease, I feel it due to frankness 
to say that my opinions have undergone some change. The 
testimony of intelligent men has satisfied me that the irrita- 
tion and ultimate inflammation of the mucous lining of the 
head produced by the tentacula of the worm and by its 
constant feeding on the secretions if not even on the 
substance of the membrane itself, in certain stages of the 
disease,* are siifticient in some cases to cause death. I should 
not expect a sheep in high condition and apparent health to 
die suddenly from this cause without previous symptoms 
of disease, and under circumstances resembling those 
of apoplexy. I should not expect the powerful nervous 
disturbances of epilepsy. But if the sheep began to fall 
oft* rapidly in condition a little before the opening of spring, 
without any other traceable cause — if it wandered round 
with irregular movements, twisting about its head occa- 
sionally as if it was suffering pain — and especially if the 
mucus discharged from the nose was tinned with blood — I 



* This may be more doubtful. 



HYDATID ON THE BRAIN. 277 

should street " grub in the head," and administer remedies 
or antidotes on that hypothesis. And after the death of 
patients, I should as carefully as practicable examine not only 
the sinuses of the head, but also the entire nasal cavities, to 
ascertain whether there were any traces of the supposed 
destructive action of the larvae. 

Some farmers protect their sheep measurably from the attacks 
of the cestrus ovis, by plowing a furrow or two in different por- 
tions of their pastures. The sheep thrust their noses into this 
on the approach of the fly. Others smear their noses with tar, 
or cause them to smear them themselves, by sprinkling their 
salt over tar. Those fish oils which repel the attacks of flies 
might be resorted to. Blacklock suggested the dislodgement 
of the larvae from the head by blowing tobacco smoke up the 
nostrils, — as it is said to be effectual. It is blown from the 
tail of a pipe, the bowl being covered with cloth. Tobacco 
Avater is sometimes injected with a syringe for the same 
purpose. The last should be prevented from entering the 
throat in any considerable quantity. 

I trust that scientific and impartial investigation will 
henceforth be more directed to a determination of the actual 
existence and proper treatment of this real or supposed 
malady. 

Hydatid on the Brain. — This disease, known as 
turnsick, sturdy, staggers, etc., is spoken of by Chancellor 
Livingston, and other writers of reputation, as having 
occurred in this country within their own observation. I 
have never seen a case of it, and shall be obliged, therefore, 
to make use of the descriptions of others. Mr. Spooner says : 

" The symptoms are a dull, moping appearance, the sheep 
separating from the flock, a wandering and blue appearance 
to the eye, and sometimes partial or total blindness ; the sheep 
appears unsteady in its walk, will sometimes stop suddenly 
and fall down, at others gallop across the field, and after the 
disease has existed for some time will almost constantly move 
round in a circle — there seems, indeed, to be an aberration 
of the intellect of the animal. These symptoms, though rarely 
all present in the same subject, are yet sufficiently marked 
to prevent the disease being mistaken for any other. On 
examining the brain of sturdied sheep, we find what appears 
to be a watery bladder, termed a hydatid, which may be 
either small or of the size of a hen's egg. This hydatid, one 
of the class of entozoons, has been termed by naturalists the 



278 HYDATID ON THE HKAIN. 

hydatis polycephalus cerebralis, which signifies the many- 
headed hydatid of the brain; these heads being irregularly 
distributed on the surface of the bladder, and on the front 
part of each head, there is a mouth surrounded by minute, 
sharp hooks within a ring of sucking disks. These disks 
serve as the means of attachment by forming a vacuum, and 
bring the mouth in contact with the surface, and thus by the 
aid of the hooks the parasite is nourished. The coats of the 
hydatid are disposed in several layers, one of which appears 
to possess a muscular power. These facts are developed by 
the microscope, which also discovers numerous little bodies 
adhering to the internal membrane. The fluid in the bladder 
is usually clear, but occasionally turbid, and then it has been 
found to contain a number of minute worms." 

According to Mr. Youatt, this disease attacks many of the 
weakly lambs in the English flocks. It usually appears, he 
remarks, " during the first year of the animal's life, and when 
he is about or under six months old." It succeeds "a severe 
winter and a cold, wet spring." He says : 

" If there is only one parasite inhabiting the brain of a 
sturdied sheep, its situation is very imcertain. It is mostly 
found beneath the pia-mater, lying upon the brain, and in or 
upon the scissure between the two hemispheres. If it is 
within the brain, it is generally in one of the ventricles, but 
occasionally in the substance of the brain, and, in a few 
instances, in that of the cerebellum. * * * This is a 
singular disease ; but it is a sadly prevalent and fatal one in 
wet and moorish districts. * * * It is much more fatal 
in France than in Great Britain. It is supposed that nearly a 
million of sheep are destroyed in France every year by this 
pest of the ovine race. * * * The means of cure are 
exceedingly limited. They are confined to tne removal or 
destruction of the vesicle. Medicine is altogether out of the 
question here." 

Many barbarous methods have been adopted to rupture 
the hydatid. Mr. James Hogg thrust a wire up the nostrils 
of the sheep, and through the plate of the ethmoid bone into 
the brain, and thus, as he assures us, punctured the hydatid 
and "cured many a sheep!"* This practice, which I can not 
characterize otherwise than as atrocious, is justly condemned 
by Mr. Youatt. Mr. Parkinson " pulled the ears very hard 
for some time," and then cut them off close to the head ! f 

* Hogg on Sheep, p. 59. 

t Parkinson on Sheep, Vol. 1, p. 412. 



WATER ON THE BRAIN. 279 

Where the hydatid is not imbedded in the brain, its 
constant pressure, singularly enough, causes a portion of the 
cranium to be absorbed, and finally the part immediately over 
the hydatid becomes thin and soft enough to yield under the 
pressure of the finger. When such a spot is discovered, the 
English veterinarians usually dissect back the muscular 
integuments, remove a portion of the bone, carefully divide 
the investing membranes of the brain, and then, if possible, 
remove the hydatid whole — or, failing to do this, remove 
its fluid contents. The membranes and integuments are then 
restored to their position, and an adhesive plaster placed over 
the whole. The French veterinarians usually simply puncture 
the cranium and the cist with a trochar, and laying the sheep 
on its back, permit the fluid to run out through the orifice 
thus made. A common awl would answer every purpose for 
such a puncture. The puncture would be the preferable 
method for the unskilled practitioner. But when we take 
into consideration the hazard and cruelty attending the 
operation at best, and the conceded liability of a return of the 
malady — the growth of new hydatids — it becomes apparent 
that, in this country, it would not be worth while, unless in 
the case of uncommonly valuable sheep, to resort to any 
other remedy than depriving the miserable animal of life. * 

Water on the Brain. — I have never seen this disease. 
It was first described by Mr. Youatt as an effusion of serous 
fluid, or water, without being confined in any sack or bladder, 
within the cavity occupied by the brain, or between its 
investing membranes. It is peculiar to young lambs, and 
sometimes occupies the head before birth, giving it unusual 
size, and rendering parturition difficult. The skull is a little 
enlarged ; the bones of it are generally thin ; but sometimes 
they are thickened. The appetite occasionally fails, but 
oftener is increased ; the bowels are usually constipated — 
though sometimes they are relaxed ; the lamb appears more 
or less stupid ; is disinclined to move ; staggers slightly ; pines 
away " almost to a skeleton," and dies before it is two months 
old. Mr. Youatt, after pronouncing the disease generally 
incurable, advises the administration " of purgatives and 
tonics combined — the epsom salts with ginger and gentian 
and small doses of mercurial medicine, the blue pill, in doses 



* I take the above remarks and quotations on the subject of this disease from my 
Sheep Husbandry in the South, having learned nothing new in relation to it since 
that work was written. 



280 APOPLEXY. 

of four or five grains," with plenty of good milk, exercise and 
air. Mr. Spooner says : — " Nothing can be done in the way 
of treatment," — and he soundly adds: — "But it will be 
prudent not to breed again from the ewe ; and if there 
are many such cases, the ram, too, may be changed with 
advantage, for it is evident the disease is owing to some 
constitutional fault in the parents, or mismanagement during 
utero gestation." 

Apoplexy. — Apoplexy is frequent among the improved 
mutton breeds of sheep in England — which, from their birth 
to the time of their being butchered, are steadily forced 
forward into the utmost attainable growth by rich and 
stimulating food. During their whole lives, they are in a 
condition of over-fatness and plethora — and apoplexy is a 
natural result. 

This disease is very rare among American sheep, and I 
have never personally seen an instance of it. Yet when 
fleshy sheep are first turned out to grass in the spring, and 
the sun beats down with that burning heat occasionally 
characteristic of our spring weather, one of the fattest sheep 
in the flock is, suddenly, without a premonition of disease-, 
found lying dead on the ground. Sometimes one is seen to 
leap suddenly and frantically into the air, act as if unconscious, 
stagger, fall and die within five, ten, or fifteen minutes. The 
farmer has a ready-made name for the malady. The sheep 
has "grub in the head," and the grubs have just "bored 
through and penetrated the brain!" (See Grub in the Head.) 
If the perishing sheej) was examined closely, it is probable 
that the eye would be found staring — the pupils dilated — the 
sight nearly gone. If additionally the membranes of the nose 
and eyes were found of a deep red or violet color, as if engorged 
with blood, I should not doubt the presence of apoplexy. 

The treatment, when all treatment is not too late, is 
immediate bleeding from the jugular vein, until the animal 
shows signs of weakness. Mr. Youatt and Mr. Spooner speak 
of a pound as about the appropriate quantity of blood to be 
taken, but I am confident this would be found too much for 
the classes of American sheep — the Merino and its grades — 
which are kept for wool growing purposes. Mr. Youatt says 
four ounces of epsom salts should be administered as soon as 
possible after the bleeding, and an additional ounce every six 
hours until the bowels are opened. Mr. Spooner says that 
two or three ounces of salt should be administered, and to 



INFLAMMATION OF BRAIN — LOCKED JAW. 281 

lambs half that dose. I should prefer Mr. Spooner's prescrip- 
tion — but for the Merino sheep, would be inclined to reduce 
it to two ounces of the salts, followed by an ounce in six 
hours, until a copious evacuation took place. 

Inflammation of the Beain. — This is a secondary- 
effect of the causes which produce apoplexy, by which the 
substance of the brain, its membranes, or both, become the 
subject of inflammation. The symptoms are much more 
violent than the preceding. After a degree of dullness and 
inactivity, accompanied by redness and protrusion of the eyes, 
the animal becomes delirious, rushes about the field " with its 
tail cocked," attacks men and trees ; and, says Mr. Spooner, 
" in lambs their motions are quite ridiculous, and have in 
consequence, among the ignorant, given origin to the idea of 
their being bewitched." The disease is treated in the same 
way with apoplexy. 

Tetanus ok Locked Jaw. — In the spring of 1861, I had 
about eighty rams — the " culls " * which had been accumula- 
ting for two or three years in a breeding flock then numbering 
three thousand. They were castrated — a portion of them 
by slitting the scrotum and tying the spermatic cords with 
waxed thread in the usual way that old rams are altered — 
a portion of them (mostly yearlings and those older ones 
which had small spermatic cords,) by cutting off the end of 
the scrotum and removing the testicles precisely as is done in 
the case of lambs — i. e., by pulling them out ! This last 
novel mode I permitted as an experiment, on the urgent 
solicitation of the operator, a person of great experience and 
practical skill in such matters, and who had heard of its being 
practiced with success. And I am bound to state that not 
one, or not more than one, of the rams castrated in this 
unusual way was among the victims I am about to describe, f 

Owing to preceding bad weather and other hindrances, 
the sheep were castrated rather late, and the flies caused 
much trouble. After the lapse of about ten days, when the 
animals appeared to be doing well enough, three or four of 
them were suddenly found entirely rigid and unable to walk, 
or only retaining some command over the* muscles of the 

* They were those which promised too well to be castrated when lambs, but 
which did not develop themselves satisfactorily as they grew older. 

t This may have been because they were younger, or had smaller spermatic cords 
— but it at least shows that the mode is as safe as any other with such sheep. 



282 EPILEPSY. 

fore-legs, while the hind parts were as immovable as if already 
stiffenAl by death. Their jaws were set. The parts of the 
abdomen near the scrotum were considerably swollen and 
very hard. They generally stood with their legs a little 
farmer apart than usual, but their postures were so natural 
that at a few rods distance their situation, or that anything 
unusual was the matter with them, would not have been 
suspected by anybody. Some six or eight others were 
speedily attacked and the symptoms were the same. There 
was not, in a single instance, any peculiar protrusion or 
retraction of the head or any other member ; and though I 
watched them for hours, I did not discover the least approach 
to a convulsion, or even a spasm involving a single muscle. 
They gave no peculiar evidences of pain — breathed without 
difficulty — and I think that they all died within about twenty- 
four hours from the time their situation was discovered. * As 
their jaws were immovably fixed, no internal remedies could 
be administered, and I thought that the administration of 
external ones under such circumstances would be labor 
thrown away. 

The malady is very rare in the United States, but as it is 
liable to recur I will mention that the foreign veterinarians 
recommend prompt bleeding from the jugular vein, and ape- 
rient medicines, followed by opiates — also warmth and quiet. 
Mr. Spooner omits bleeding from his recommendations. 

Epilepsy. — Mr. Youatt remarks that " tetanus and 
epilepsy may be regarded as kindred diseases in all animals ; but 
that in none do they assimilate to each other as in the sheep." 

Epilepsy appears to be extremely prevalent in Engl mid 
and on the continent of Europe, but is unusual in this country. 
The sheep when laboring under its attack, suddenly ceases to 
feed, stares about stupidly, runs round with a staggering gait, 
falls to the ground, lays there struggling for a few moments, 
and then gets up and. remains for some period in a semi- 
conscious state. These attacks recur, and a severer one ends 
in death. It is thought to result from high condition and the 
nature of the pasturage — aided by certain not very well 
understood incidental causes. In England it is commonest 
early in spring and late in autumn. It is so prevalent in 

* I am ashamed to say that being peculiarly hurried at the time, I made no con- 
temporaneous written record of the facts, — and therefore am compelled partly to 
guess at them, as do all persons who rely on their recollections for minute and exact 
facts in such cases. But the general course of symptoms I have described are dis- 
tinctly remembered by mc. 



PALSY — KABIES. 283 

certain districts of France, that the people have given up 
sheep husbandry. Tessier ascribes it to the pasturage. 
Gasparin states that it is most destructive in Germany in 
spring and summer, but sometimes in the winter. He says 
the shepherds of that country attribute it to the sheep's 
eating the sproutings of the pine in spring, and some species 
of dock and garlic in the winter. * It would seem that in 
regions where it particularly prevails, flocks acquire a predis- 
position to this malady ; and the farmers of Beauce, in France, 
either get rid of the whole flock in which it appears, or they 
kill every sheep in any degree affected by it. f 

Palsy. — I never have seen an instance of this malady. 
It consists in a suspension of the nervous influence on the 
muscles — the opposite of tetanus and epilepsy, by which 
they are excited to unnatural action. The sheep sometimes 
becomes powerless in every limb and unable to move ; some- 
times the palsy extends only to the loins or hind-quarters. 
It is produced by cold and improper exposure, — and some- 
times, it is thought, by improper feed. Young lambs when 
yeaned in very cold weather, and lambs soon after weaning 
when they receive too plentiful and stimulating food, are 
most subject to its attacks — though grown sheep are not 
exempt from them, and particularly, says Mr. Spooner, " the 
ewe that has aborted or produced her lamb with difficulty 
and after a tedious labor in cold weather." 

The treatment of the disease consists, in the case of a 
chilled lamb, in the restoration of warmth, and the adminis- 
tration of warm gruel with a little ginger : — and if activity is 
not soon restored, with the addition also of a small quantity 
of ale. If diarrhea ensues, the "sheep's cordial" is given. 
In the case of older sheep Mr. Youatt recommends removal 
to a more comfortable situation, and a purgative consisting 
of epsom salts and ginger, followed by a dose or two of the 
cordial. 

Rabies. — On Christmas eve, 1862, some sheep belonging 
to my son, Henry P. Randall, were bitten by a dog. I saw 
them next morning. The flock consisted of about one 
hundred ewes, three years old last spring, and in lamb. I 
thought a dozen or more were wounded ; but as their hurts 
did not appear dangerous, I did not go to the trouble of 

* Quoted by Youatt, p. 398. + Ibid. 



284 BABIES. 

ascertaining the precise number. All were bitten, so far as I 
could discover, only about the head, and principally about the 
nose and ears. The ears of some of them were torn into 
shreds, and their noses and lips covered with tooth marks, 
showing that the attack on them had been long persisted in. 
This was evidently the work of an animal which was unable 
to kill the sheep outright. 

On Christmas morning, a small dog, belonging to a 
neighbor, was found attacking some sheep owned by the 
Messrs. Freer, kept about three-quarters of a mile from the 
preceding. He had wounded two of them in the same way, 
but more severely, when he was discovered and driven away. 
He returned to the attack not long afterwards, was again 
detected, followed home, and killed the same day. The idea 
of his being rabid did not then occur to any one, though the 
facts I have since learned lead to the impression that his 
disease would have been apparent to a person familiar with 
its symptoms. 

The wounds on H. P. Randall's sheep were {bund to heal 
rapidly, and nothing was done for them. On the 12th of 
January, 1863, he informed me that he had found one of the 
bitten sheep on the ground unable to rise ; that, on his 
helping it up, it moved about with difficulty. It had frothy 
saliva about its mouth. The next day it died. He had 
observed some ewes riding each other about, prior to the 
12th, but did not know whether the dead one was one of 
these. 

On the 14th of January, he informed me that two or three 
of the wounded sheep were riding and fighting each other ; 
that one of them had suddenly butted him from behind ; that 
on his turning and offering to kick it, it would not retreat. 
He confined it in the barn. 

I saw the flock in the afternoon. It was in fine condition. 
The wounds of the bitten sheep were mostly healed ; and, 
with two exceptions, they looked as healthy and full as 
any in the flock. Two of the sheep were obviously laboring 
under an attack of rabies. I continued to visit these and the 
succeeding cases daily, and generally twice a day, until the 
29th of January, and until all the earlier cases observed by 
me (seven) terminated in death.* I usually remained from 

* As each sheep was attacked it was immediately caught out of the flock. The 
two first cases were put first in a barn and afterwards in a small pen together, shel- 
tered on the north by a stack. The third one was put in a pen about twenty by forty 
feet, partly sheltered on the north by a barn and on the west by an overhanging straw 
stack, and the other four were placed also in this larger pen as fast as attacked. 



CASES OF RABIES. 285 

three-quarters of an hour to an hour at each visit, carefully 
noting the appearance and actions of the sheep, and keep- 
ing a separate and continuous record of each case, as I 
was able to do without the least danger of mistaking one 
animal for another — ^as every one exhibited its number 
clearly printed on its side. 

The history of these cases is published fully in the annual 
volume of Transactions of the New York State Agricultural 
Society for 1862, and is quite too long for re-publication here. 
The recapitulation appended by me to that history is as 
follows : 

SUMMARY. 

The cases I have described present variations in the minor 
developments of rabies, owing perhaps to individual peculiari- 
ties of the different animals ; but, as a whole, there has been 
a remarkable identity in the general symptoms. 

Assuming that the rabid sheep, which I have designated 
as No. 3, was seen by me on the first day of the attack of the 
disease — a fact of which I entertain no doubt after comparing 
the subsequent symptoms with those of the later ones — and 
estimating the two first numbered cases to have had the 
average duration of the other five, the period of " incubation " 
in the whole seven, (that is, the period between the sheep's 
being bitten and the appearance of rabies,) ranged from 
fifteen to twenty-six days, and averaged about twenty- one 
days. 

The first observed symptom, in every case which was 
seen at or near its commencement, was the same, viz., 
ungovernable apparent salacity, (lust,) manifested not accord- 
ing to the sex of the patients — all of which were ewes, and 
supposed to be in lamb — but in the manner^in which the 
ram exhibits sexual heat. This resemblance extended to the 
minutest particulars in movements, postures, and in that 
characteristic note with which the male animal expresses 
desire as he approaches and importunes the female. In no 
instance did the rabid ewe show any of the usual indications of 
rutting. She incessantly attempted to ride her companions, 
but uniformly manifested rage, and turned and fought the one 
attempting to ride her. This propensity remained active 
until the sheep became too weak to exercise it, and never 
entirely ceased. 

In all the cases, rumination was totally suspended from the 
first visible attack of the disease until death ; and throughout 



286 CASES OF RABIES. 

the same period, all the patients, with perhaps one exception,* 
were not seen to consume an ounce of natural food, though 
the choicest was repeatedly offered to them — in some 
instances, where they had been purposely deprived of it for 
twenty-lour hours. They, however, manifested a depraved 
appetite. All of them frequently ate wool from each other, 
and gnawed the rails of their pen. One was seen to eat dung 
balls from the breech of another — another, snow which had 
just been saturated with sheep's urine — and two eagerly 
to lick the muous and saliva from the nose and mouth of a 
dead one, and afterwards the post-mortem discharges from 
the same parts. They preyed upon every substance within 
their reach which was unnatural as food, except the flesh of 
their dead companions. Their eating, as I have termed it, 
was attended, so far as could be observed, with no regular 
mastication. When they gnawed the rails of their pen, they 
held their heads down and extended, so that it could not be 
seen whether they masticated or not. They did not pause 
and raise their heads to do so, but continued intently gnawing. 
The only evidence I had of their swallowing the wood w 'as, 
that considerable quantities of it were bitten from all parts of 
the pen and none of it could be found on the snow underneath ; 
and as some of the wood gnawed was of a red, and much of 
it of a dark color, it would have been readily visible there. 
When they ate wool, dung balls and the like, they generally 
snatched them, as if in haste, and in all cases swallowed them 
after two or three rapid movements of the jaws, which were 
apparently only made to place the substance in a situation to 
be forced into the esophagus. 

No exhibition of thirst was observed in any case, and, on 
the other hand, no dread of water, Avhen it was placed in a 
pail before the/n. One played in the water with her nose, as 
a horse is often seen to do, and drank a little without apparent 
difficulty. One or two were seen to nibble a little ice or 
snow on two or three occasions. 

The evacuation of both dung and urine was very slight. 
The feces appeared natural in color and consistency. 

I came to the conclusion, after considerable hesitation, 
that the disease, in its earlier stages, and perhaps through- 
out, was accompanied by a slight unnatural exj^ression of the 

* No. 7 was seen for an instant attempting to ride another sheep the afternoon 
before the disease, apparently, was fully developed. She resumed eating hay while ] 
stood looking on. I observed her eating for perhaps five minutes. When I next saw 
her she was rabid. 



CASKS OF RABIES. 28V 

eyes, which, for the want of a more expressive term, I have 
called glistening. But I do not think any one could safely 
undertake to select a rabid sheep from a flock, even if one 
was known to be there, by this indication alone. Yet 
obscure as is this symptom, it is the only one which distin- 
guishes the rabid sheep, in appearance, from one in perfect 
health, until emaciation and the other later effects of the 
malady exhibit themselves. The animal is as gregarious as 
ever ; eats its food and ruminates as placidly as usual ; looks 
as plump, bright and healthy as any sheep in the flock ; half 
an hour later, with looks entirely unchanged, unless in the 
trifling particular named, it is moving round restlessly and 
incessantly among its companions, struck by a malady which 
has transformed the habits of its sex* — which no human 
power can arrest or even palliate — and which will know no 
respite until terminated in a miserable death. 

The subsequent occurrence and progress of the symptoms, 
in the cases observed by me, were about as follows : — The 
rabid sheep both exhibited and provoked extreme rage when 
they were first put in a pen with other rabid sheep ; they 
fought or pursued each other fiercely; but this mood soon 
subsided in the new comers, and for the next twenty-four 
hours they remained comparatively peaceable, at least unag- 
gressive, but they were ever ready to fight on being ridden. 
On the second day the depraved appetite manifested itself, 
and they began to rub their heads against fences, walls, etc., 
and to scratch them with their own hind-feet, leading to the 
inference that they were suffering some cerebral pain. The 
]3art of the head invariably rubbed was that over the parietal 
bones. On the second or third day the scars left by the dog's 
teeth looked red and inflamed. The sheep were more restless 
and irritable ; they frequently assailed their companions 
without any provocation ; they fiercely butted, and two of 
them actually bit at a stick, as often as it was pushed against 
or towards them. On the third or fourth day they rushed at 
a man if he entered their pen — bounded forward and dashed 
against the fence which separated them from him, on his 
thrusting a stick at them. Three of them thus charged the 
fence, if only a hat or handkerchief was shaken towards them. 
Two were so ungovernably fierce at times that they sprung at 
a bystander if he uttered a sound or merely approached their 
pen. They bounded forward when they made these assaults, 

* At least so in the case of ewes. 



288 OASES OP RABIES. 

most of them emitting that loud, snuffing sound (caused by a 
violent expulsion of air through the nostrils,) by -which rams, 
bulls, etc., often express their rage at the approach of some 
Strange object. Two of them opened their mouths, gnashing 
and threatening to bite, whenever they attacked a man or a 
stick, but I did not see them offer to bite when fighting their 
companions. On the fourth or fifth day the wounds of a portion 
of them, more or less, re-opened. On the fifth or sixth day 
they began to exhibit considerable weakness, and most of them 
displayed less ferocity. No. 1, however, remained indomit- 
ably savage to the last ; No. 3 remained so until near death ; 
and No. 6, after a temporary lull, became more deeply 
re-excited and ferocious, and remained so until death. These 
three last named sheep would rush at a man, a stick, or 
another sheep, when they were so weak as frequently to fall 
before reaching their object, and as soon as they could rise 
they would renew the attack. They and others frequently 
fought each other when in this condition, constantly falling, 
and some of them uttering short, bleating sounds, or groaning 
piteously when they were hurt. Tljeir voices on such 
occasions were more shrill and plaintive than the notes of 
the healthy sheep; but the only one I heard utter the usual 
prolonged bleat, with which sheep call to each other, or to 
their keeper, uttered it in the natural key ; and this was on 
the sixth day of the disease.* 

On the sixth day, one of the sheep began to rub her 
breech, often and hard, against the fence, and she continued 
this, more or less, until death. From the appearance of the 
parts, I inferred this was occasioned by an irritation of the 
vagina. 

Those which exhibited the greatest decrease of aggressive- 
ness, as their strength failed, never resumed the usual timid 
habits of their nature. They retreated from nothing ; and to 
the last if a man entered their pen and threatened them with 
a stick, they instantly attacked him. 

The prostration of strength progressed with different 
degrees of rapidity, owing probably to their different degrees 
of constitutional vigor ; but all showed much and rapidily 
increasing debility by the close of the sixth day. Their 
respiration was labored and sometimes irregular. The pulse 

• Their notes were in no case very " much altered " from the usnal ones which 
indicate rape, pain, &c, and the " howl of the dog," said by Mr. Youatt to be " char- 
acteristic of the disease," was entirely wanting. I do not suppose, however, Mr. 
Youatt meant to be understood literally, but merely that the key of their voices was 
changed, and rendered high and plaintive, as in the case of the rabTd dog. 



CASES OF RABIES. 289 

of the one counted rose to one hundred and forty a minute. 
One became blind in one eye, one in both, and a third partly 
blind in one eye. The cornea, in each instance, became 
opaque and white ; but this happened only where wounds of 
the dog's teeth could be found on the lids or close to the 
affected eye. At this stage the scabs of nearly all of them 
dried up, and their wounds appeared to be rapidly healing 
again. When standing quiet, their heads sunk down low 
and they trembled slightly all over, as an animal often does 
after drinking cold water. Froth exuded in rather small 
quantities from the front part of the mouths of two or three 
of them, and ropy saliva fell from the lips of one to the 
ground. 

The last day or two of their lives they staggered in their 
gait, fell over their dead companions, and rose with difficulty. 
Finally they became unable to rise. The respiration was 
more labored and irregular, and, in one instance, stertorous. 
Their debility was extreme. Even at this stage, and until 
actually dying, they did not manifest that degree of "stupor" 
and "insensibility to all that is going forward," mentioned by 
Mr. Youatt. They looked up when a loud or unusual noise 
was made, and those which were not blind evidently took 
notice of objects of sight ; and not one of them to the last 
showed the least indications of becoming paralytic, as the 
same distinguished author states that rabid sheep usually do 
in England. Neither the appearance of the ground, nor their 
postures, indicated convulsions or struggling at the time of 
their death. I saw none of them die. 

The five cases which were seen throughout, extended 
respectively through nine, seven, eight, ten and six days, 
giving eight days as the average duration of the disease. 

While the preceding statement of the symptoms of rabies 
accords in its leading features with that given by Mr. Youatt, 
there are even more discrepancies between them in detail 
than I have called attention to. I think it probable that 
these differences are due in some measure to local or incidental 
circumstances, such as the peculiar breed, constitution and 
habits of the animals, their previous keep, etc. In all these 
respects the American Merino differs widely from the English 
breeds. The season of the year when the cases were noted, 
may also have had an influence. And, finally, owing to 
climate or other undetected causes, the malady may not 
assume precisely the same form in different countries. But 
be all this as it may, I at least know that I carefully noticed, 
13 



290 CASES OF RABIES. 

and instantly, and, so far as I could, faithfully, recorded the 
facts seen by my own eyes. 

No remedies were administered to any of the sheep, under 
the impression that it would be utterly useless, and attended 
with disagreeable if not dangerous consequences. 

Professor Hyde, of the Geneva Medical College, kindly 
promised to assist me in making post mortem examinations 
of the several patients — but necessary absence from home 
prevented it from being attended to until it was too late. I 
regretted this less, because it is well known that in all such 
cases, the post mortem appearances are irregular, unsatisfac- 
tory, and not characteristic of the special disease. 

Two later cases occurred in the same flock, from the bites 
inflicted on the night of the 24th of December — in the last 
of February or flrst of March, according to my present recol- 
lection ; but I can not speak with certainty, having given my 
memoranda to an Agricultural Editor. The general course 
of the disease was the same. The last animal exhibited 
peculiar violence, fighting a stick thrust toward her with a 
ferocity resembling that of an enraged dog; and, unlike its 
predecessors, it constantly uttered short, angry bleats when 
making its attacks. It remained equally furious after it was 
unable to rise. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

DISEASES OE THE DIGESTIVE OKGANS. 

BLAIN OBSTRUCTIONS OF THE GULLET THE STOMACHS 

AND THEIR DISEASES EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL APPEAR- 
ANCE OE THE STOMACHS THE MODE OP ADMINISTERING 

MEDICINES INTO THE STOMACHS OF SHEEP — HOOVE POISONS 

INFLAMMATION OF THE RUMEN, OR PAUNCH OBSTRUC- 
TION OF THE MANIPLUS ACUTE DROPSY, OR RED -WATER 

ENTERITIS, OR INFLAMMATION OF THE COATS OF THE 

INTESTINES DIARRHEA DYSENTERY CONSTIPATION 

COLIC, OR STRETCHES BRAXY, OR INFLAMMATION OF THE 

BOWELS WORMS PINING. 

Blain. — This malady, as has been remarked, is unknown 
in the United States. The following is Mr. Youatt's descrip- 
tion of its symptoms and treatment : 

" Sheep are liable, although not so much as cattle, to that 
infianimation of the tongue, or rather of the cellular tissue on 
the side of and under the tongue, to which the above singular 
names are given. A few sheep in the flock are occasionally 
attacked by it, or it appears under the form of an epidemic. 
A discharge of saliva runs from the mouth ; at first colorless 
and devoid of smell, but soon becoming bloody, purulent and 
stinking. The head and neck begin to swell, and the animal 
breathes with difficulty, and is sometimes suffocated. A 
succession of vesicles have risen along the side of the tongue — 
they have rapidly grown — they have broken — they have 
become gangrenous — they have formed deep ulcers, or 
deeper abscesses that occasionally break outwardly. When 
this is the case it is probably the " Greathead " of Mr. 
Hogg. The cause is some unknown atmospheric influence ; 
but the sheep have been predisposed to be affected by it, 
either by previous unhealthy weather, by feeding on unwhole- 
some herbage, or by unnecessary exposure to cold and wet. 



202 IJLAIN — CHOKING 

"Whatever may be the case with regard to cattle, 
there is no doubt that the blain is often infections among 
sheep. The diseased sheep should immediately be removed 
from the rest, and placed in a separate and somewhat 
distant pasture. 

" The malady most first be attacked locally. If there are 
any vesicles in the mouth they must be freely lanced. If any 
tumors appear on the neck or face, and that evidently contain 
a fluid, they must be opened. The ulcers must be bathed 
with warm water at first, and until the matter is almost 
evacuated — then lotions of cold water, in each pint of which 
one drachm of the chloride of lime has been dissolved, must 
be diligently used. Aperients must be administered very 
cautiously, and not at all, unless there is considerable consti- 
pation. The strength of the animal must be supported by 
any farinaceous food that it can be induced to take — linseed 
mashes — bran mashes with oatmeal — and the best succulent 
vegetables, as carrots and mangel wurzel ; plenty of good, 
thick gruel, if necessary, being horned down, and two drachms 
of powdered gentian root and one of ginger, with four grains 
of powdered cantharides, being given morning, noon and 
night. Bleeding will be very proper in this disease before 
the vesicles have broken, or the external tumors begun to 
soften, and there is an evident and considerable degree of 
fever ; but after the purulent, fetid matter has begun to 
appear, it will only hasten the death of the animal." 

Obstructions of the Gullet. — Sheep are much less 
liable to become "choked "than cattle, but it occasionally 
occurs when they are fed cut roots. The obstructing sub- 
stance which is lodged in the esophagus or gullet, can 
sometimes be felt from the outside, and moved upward or 
downward by the pressure of the fingers. If this can not be 
done the sheep should be placed on its rump between a man's 
legs and held firmly with the head extended upward in a line 
with the neck. Some oil should then be poured into the 
throat, and a flexible probang very carefully inserted and 
pressed down with sufficient force to carry the obstruction 
before it into the stomach. I trust gutta-percha probangs for 
this purpose will soon be prepared for sale. The best 
implement now attainable on most farms is a strong, flexible, 
elastic rod of hickory or elm, made perfectly smooth, and 
not far from five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. A 



THE STOMACHS. 293 

little bag of flax seed is firmly secured to the lower end, and 
on dipping the rod into hot water to limber it for use, the 
bag becomes perfectly soft and slippery. Some wind the end 
of the probang with tow and dip it in oil. 

There is usually no great difficulty in removing the 
obstruction, but the sheep is often injured so that it subse- 
quently dies, in consequence of the lacerations inflicted on the 
parts by the haste or carelessness of the operator. Too much 
care and gentleness can not be manifested in every part of 
the process. 

Where the obstruction can not be thus removed, veterinary 
practitioners cut down upon it from the outside, and having 
removed it, the edges of the esophagus are carefully brought 
together with two or three stitches, and the threads left long 
enough to project from the external wound. The skin is also 
stitched together, and a bandage placed without much 
pressure round the neck. If the sheep is fleshy a moderate 
cathartic should be administered, and it should be kept on 
mashes or gruel until the wound is closed. I would not, 
however, recommend this process to persons unfamiliar with 
surgical operations. 

The Stomachs and their Diseases. — I shall describe 
the stomachs to some extent for the better understanding of 
their diseases; and for this purpose I quote the following 
from my " Sheep Husbandry in the South " : 

" On opening the abdomen the omentum or caul is found 
covering the intestines. It is a thin, and, in a normal state, 
colorless and transparent structure, formed of two membranes, 
between which extend streaks of fat in the form of a net. 

"The external appearance of the stomachs is given in the 
following cut (see next page) of those of a young sheep 
which died of disease. Their arrangement is slightly 
different in the animal. 



294 



STOMACHS OF THE SHKE1*. 




THE STOMACHS. 

a," The esophagus or gullet, entering the rumen or paunch. 

b, b. The rumen, or paunch, occupying three-fourths of the abdomen. 
r. The reticulum, or honey-comb — the 2d stomach. 

rf, The maniplus, or many folds — the 3d stomach. 

c. The abomasum, or 4th stomach. 

/, The commencement of the duodenum or first intestine. 

g, The place of the pylorus, a valve which separates the contents of the aboma- 
sum and duodenum. 

"The walls of the rumen or paunch consist of four coats or 
tunics — 1st, The peritoneal or outer coat; 2d, The muscular; 
3d, The mucous, covered with papilla 1 , or little protuberances, 
from which (or glands under which) is secreted a peculiar 
fluid to soften and prepare the food for re-mastication ; and, 
4th, The inner or cuticular coat, a thin, entirely insensible 
membrane, which, defends the mucous coat from abrasion or 
erosion." 



STOMACHS OF THE SHEEP. 



295 



The following cut which I borrow from Mr. Youatt's 
work on sheep, exhibits the 

INTERNAL APPEARANCE OF STOMACHS. 




«*, 



The esophagus or gullet. 

The commencement of the esophagean canal, slit open, with muscular pillars 

underneath. 
c, c, The rumen, paunch or first stomach, slit open. 
The reticulum or honey-comb — slit open. 
The maniplus or many-folds — slit open. 
The abomasum — slit open. 

The commencement of the duodenum or first intestine. 
The duodenum slit open. 
m, I, Wands, showing course of esophagean canal, opening of stomachs, etc. 



" The reticulum or honey-comb is composed of the same 
number of coats as the rumen, fulfilling similar functions. 



296 STOMACHS OF THE SIIEKP. 

But the mucous coat, in addition to minute papilla?, is covered 
with elevations arranged in pentagons and sexagons of differ- 
ent sizes, somewhat resembling a honey-comb, except that the 
cells are larger and shallower. 

" The maniplus has the same four coats. Its floor is a 
continuation of the esophagean canal. From its roof depend 
many parallel folds of the cuticular coat — here thicker and 
stronger than in the other stomachs — reaching nearly to its 
floor. The cuticle is covered toward the edges of the folds, 
with hard, bony processes, shaped like fangs, or cones bent in 
a curvelinear form, and pointing toward the entrance of the 
stomach. The interior of each fold or leaf contains muscles 
which impart to it the power of a peculiar and forcible 
motion. There are forty-two of these folds in the maniplus 
of the sheep — occasionally forty-eight. They do not all 
equally nearly approach the esophagean canal, but are 
disposed in groups of six — one of the central ones of each 
nearly reaching the canal or floor of the stomach — the others 
on each side growing shorter and shorter, so as to form a 
series of irregular re-entering angles. 

"The abomasum is the digesting stomach, where the 
gastric juices are secreted, and where the pultaceous food is 
converted into chyme. It is funnel-shaped, and its lower 
extremity connects with the intestines as shown in the cut. 
The cuticular lining of the three preceding stomachs is 
wanting in this. The mucous coat is disposed in the form of 
rug cm or shallow folds, arranged longitudinally with 1 la- 
direction of the stomach, and from this membrane the 
gastric juices are secreted. 

"The comparative size of the four stomachs will be 
sufficiently seen in the preceding illustration. 

" Where the esophagus enters the rumen, it terminates in 
what is called the esophagean canal, a continuation of the 
former constituting the roof of the latter. The bottom or 
floor of this canal is formed of divided portions or folds of the 
upper parts of the rumen and reticulum — muscular "pillars" 
or "lips," as they are sometimes denominated — which may 
remain closed so that the food will pass over them into the 
third and fourth stomachs — or they may open, permitting 
the food to fall between them, as through a trap-door, into 
the first and second stomachs. It is probable that the opening 
of these lips, as food passes over them, depends somewhat 
upon a mechanical effect, and somewhat upon the will of the 
animal. Fluid and soft pultaceous food fit for immediate 



STOMACHS OF THE SHEEP. 297 

digestion glide over them. But most of the food of thefeheep, 
like that of other ruminating animals, is swallowed with little 
preparatory mastication ; and these untriturated solids drop 
down through the first opening above described into the 
rumen. It is certain, however, that the animal can, at will, 
also cause water to pass through the opening into the first 
stomach. This would be necessary in the animal economy, 
and the water is always found there. 

" When the food has entered the rumen, the muscular 
action of that viscus compels it to make the circuit of its 
different compartments, and, in time, the food later swallowed 
forces it on and up to near the opening where it originally 
entered. In its passage it is macerated by a solvent alkaline 
fluid secreted by the mucous coat. The papillre of that coat 
are supposed to influence the mechanical action of the 
contents of the stomach, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, to 
aid in triturating them. The food performs the circuit of the 
stomach, and is ready for re-mastication, according to 
Spallanzani, in from sixteen to eighteen hours. By a 
umscnlar effort of the stomach, a portion of it is then thrown 
over the membraneous valve or fold which guards the 
opening from this into the second stomach. The reticulum 
contracts upon it, forming it into a suitable pellet to be 
returned to the mouth, and also covers it with a mucus 
secreted in this stomach. By a spasmodic effort (always 
perceptible externally when the sheep or cow commences 
rumination) the pellet is forced through the roof of the 
reticulum, by the opening before described, and returned to 
the mouth by contractions of the spiral muscle of the 
esophagus or gullet, for mastication. 

" This explanation of the functions of the second stomach 
is not accepted by all the physiologists who have examined 
this subject. Some contend that all the solider portions 
of the food are returned directly from the rumen for 
re-mastication ; that when raised to the floor of the esopha- 
gean canal, the hard parts are carried up to the mouth — the 
more pultaceous ones (but still not sufficiently pultaceous 
for the fourth stomach) passing into the reticulum, where 
they are again macerated — the fluid squeezed out of them 
by a contraction of the stomach and allowed to pass on to the 
fourth stomach — and then the drier parts raised, like those 
from the paunch, for re-mastication. More solid and indi- 
gestible substances ' may be submitted two or more times to 
the process of rumination.' " 
13* 



298 STOMACHS OF TIIK SIIKKC. 

k * Let us now observe the course pursued by the food, and 
the process to which it is submitted, after rumination. It 
glides over the trap-doors which open into the first and second 
stomachs. As it passes over the floor of the third, or the 
maniplus, the pendant leaves of this viscus, armed with their 
beak-like protuberances, seize the advancing mass, and 
squeezing out the fluid and the more finely comminuted 
portions of the food which escape with it, commence tritura- 
ting the bulkier fibrous portions between 1 heir folds. Their 
bony papillae give to these folds something of the mechanical 
action of rasps, in grinding down the vegetable fiber. The 
food being now reduced to an entirely pultaceous state, passes 
ijito the fourth stomach, or abomasum, where it is acted upon 
by the gastric juice, and converted into chyme. The amount 
of food found between the folds of the maniplus, after death, 
depends upon the time that has elapsed since rumination. It 
is dry and hard, compared Avith the contents of the other 
stomachs. 

"The entrance to the fourth stomach— the cardiac opening 
— is closed against regurgitation or vomiting, by a sort of 
valve, composed of a portion of one of the rugae, before alluded 
to, which line the interior of this stomach. The pylorus is 
also closed by a valve, which prevents a premature passage 
of the contents of the stomach into the intestines. 

" Before the duodenum enters into (or changes its name 
to) the jejunum, and about 18 inches from the pylorus, it is 
perforated by the biliary duct — ductus choledochus — which 
brings the bile eliminated by the liver, from the gall-bladder, 
and also the fluid which is secreted by the pancreas, or sweet- 
bread, which last is introduced into the biliary duct two 
inches from its entrance into the duodenum, by another duct 
or small tube. The compound fluid thus introduced into the 
duodenum exercises various important offices in the digestive 
and assimilating processes. The bile is supposed to aid in the 
separation of the chyme into chyle and fecal matter — or the 
nutritive parts of the food which are assimilated into blood, 
from the innutritious parts which are discharged as excrement. 
It also prevents a putrid decomposition of the vegetable 
contents of the intestines, and serves various other useful 
purposes. 

"The chyle — a white albuminous fluid, with a composi- 
tion differing but little from that of blood — is taken from the 
intestines by a multitude of minute ducts called lacteals, which 
traverse the mesentary, constantly uniting as they advance, 



MODE OF ADMINISTERING MEDICINE. 299 

so as to form larger ducts. These enter the mesenteric glands 
— small glandular bodies attached to the mesentary — after 
the passage of which the chyle begins to change its color. 
The lacteals still continue to unite and enlarge, and finally 
terminate in the thoracic duct. In this the chyle is mingled 
with the lymph secreted from a portion of the lymphatics — 
another exceedingly minute system of absorbent ducts, which 
open on the internal and external surfaces of the whole 
system. From the thoracic duct, the chyle is conveyed to 
the heart, and enters into circulation as blood." 

Mode of Introducing Medicines into the Stomachs 
of Sheep. — Owing to the peculiar arrangement and action 
of the stomachs above described, solids, and even fluids if 
forced down the throat rapidly, fall on the pillars or lips of the 
esophagean canal with enough momentum to cause them to 
open, so that the swallowed substance falls into the paunch : 
and the comparatively insensible walls or coatings of this 
stomach are scarcely acted upon, to any sensible degree, by 
medicines, when they are administered in the proper and 
usual quantities. Consequently, let him who administers 
medicines in " balls," or in thick, heavy forms, or pours down 
fluid ones with haste and violence through the usual horn, 
remember that he is, in most cases, substantially throwing 
away his medicine, or putting it where its effects will not be 
felt in time to be of any service in acute cases. The reader 
is requested to keep these facts distinctly in recollection 
whenever the administration of remedies is spoken of in this 
volume ; for there can be no possible use of constantly 
repeating the caution. 

Hoove. — When sheep are suddenly turned from poor 
pastures on fresh clover, turnips, or other unusually succulent 
food, and allowed to fill themselves to excess, its fermentation 
in the first stomach or paunch causes an elimination of gas, 
which sometimes distends that organ almost to bursting. It 
presses against the diaphragm (midriff) so that the lungs 
can not be filled with air, and thereby directly produces 
suffocation ; or the blood no longer circulates through the 
paunch, and is- determined to the head, producing stupor and 
death. 

It is most egregious folly in all cases, to make any such 
sudden change in feed. If dried-off ewes, for example, are to 
be put on rank clover, they should, at first, be admitted to it 



300 HOOVE. 

for only two or throe hours a day — and driven in at mid-day, 
when their hunger is already, to a good extent, satisfied. 
This continued two or three days entirely prevents the danger 
of hoove. 

When sheep are discovered to he " hooven," they should 
be driven gently about for an hour. If swollen to a very 
dangerous extent, and the distress and oppression are 
evidently increasing, they must be relieved by mechanical 
means. Those provided with such instruments either pass a 
flexible tube with a rounded perforated end* down the throat 
into the stomach, through which the pent-up gas escapes, or 
they plunge a trocar (a sharp stylet or puncturing instrument 
covered with a canula or sheath,) into the paunch through the 
left flank. The trocar is withdrawn, leaving its sheath in the 
wound, which keeps the openings in the side and paunch 
opposite to each other, thus allowing a freer exit to the gas, 
and preventing the other matters forced along with it from 
being left within the cavity of the abdomen or belly. Any 
solid or semi-solid matter deposited there leads to inflamma- 
tion, and ultimately, if in any considerable cptantity, to death. 
If a pocket knife is used instead of a trocar, the above 
dangers are incurred; but it is often the only available 
instrument at hand, and generally proves a safe one. The 
place for inserting it is in the left flank, half way between the 
haunch and ribs, and well up toward the back bone. 

It is considered safest always to administer a purgative — 
usually one or two ounces of epsom salts with a drachm of 
powdered ginger — after a severe attack of hoove. Mr. 
Spooner prescribes: — " Sulphate of magnesia two oz., ginger 
one dr., gentian tAvo dr., chloride of lime half dr., to be dis- 
solved in a pint of warm water or gruel." 

If gas continues to be developed, Mr. Youatt recommends 
the introduction into the stomach of chloride of lime — a 
drachm dissolved in a gill of water — cither by means of a 
horn or through the canula of the trocar. This would also 
be an admirable remedy to administer (down the throat) in 
earlier stages of the disease when the case was not urgent, or 
the opening of the paunch yet called for. Once in the paunch 
it would produce chemical results which would at once relieve 
the parts of their unnatural distension. Sulphuric ether, if 



* Messrs. Youatt and Spooner mention such an instrument (having a stylet 
within it which is withdrawn after its insertion into the stomach,) invented by Dr. 
Munro. I have never seen it. Both writers state that its use is difficult and danger. 
ous in unpraeticed hands ; and Mr. Youatt expresses a preference for the trocar. 



POISONS. 301 

more accessible, would also, in doses of two drachms, 
condense ' the inflating gases. A remedy in use among 
farmers, but which I have never seen tried, is composed of 
four ounces of lard and a pint of well-boiled milk, poured 
down at blood heat — half at once, and the remainder soon 
after. Others administer a gill of urine with as much salt as 
it will dissolve.* Some give milk with a small quantity of 
soft soap. 

Poisons. — The effect of St. John's-Wort has been adverted 
to at page 269. The most ordinary poison which the sheep 
partakes of in the regions with which I am familiar, is the 
narrow-leaved or low laurel, {Kalmia angustifolia.) Sheep 
unused to this plant, and driven hungry along roadsides 
where it abounds, consume it and it acts as a virulent poison 
on them. I never saw a sheep laboring under its effects. 
Mr. Morrell says : — " The animal appears to be dull and 
stupid, swells a little, and is constantly gulping a greenish 
fluid which it swallows down ; a part of it will trickle out of 
its mouth and discolor its lips." He adds : — " In the early 
stages, if the greenish fluid be suffered to escape from the 
stomach, the animal most generally recovers. To effect this, 
gag the sheep, which may be done in this manner : Take a 
stick of the size of your wrist and six inches long — place it 
in the animal's mouth — tie a string to one end of it, pass it 
over the head and down to the other end, and there make it 
fast. The fluid will then run from the mouth as fast as 
thrown up from the stomach. In addition to this, give 
roasted onions and sweetened milk freely." 

Mr. Grennell,in the Massachusetts Agricultural Report, 1860, 
states that the broad-leaved laurel, " calico bush" or " spoon- 
wood," (Kalmia latifolia,) is equally fatal, and that " a far- 
mer in Franklin county, .Mass., lost sixty from a flock of two 
hundred, in the fall of 1860, which strayed from a good feed 
of aftermath grass, into an adjoining pasture, to eat laurel and 
die." Several plants growing in our Western States are 
thought occasionally to poison sheep, but I do not know their 
names or the facts. Mr. Youatt enumerates among the 
vegetable sheep poisons, the yew (Taxus baccata,) and the 
corn-crowfoot {Ranunculus arvensis.) Mr. Spooner mentions 
that soot, when applied as a top-dressing on wheat on which 
sheep were soon afterwards turned, acted as a poison, pro- 
ducing palsy of the limbs and death. 



* American Agriculturist, Vol. 3, p. 66. 



302 poisons. 

M. Brugnone very successfully administered diluted white 
wine vinegar to sheep poisoned with corn - crowfoot. They 
were all comparatively well on the succeeding day. Mr. 

Spooner quotes Mr. Coates, of Gainsborough, England, as 
saying that three or four score of sheep poisoned hy soot — all 
those which had not become paralyzed — recovered on the 
administration of cathartics until their bowels were well 
acted upon. "They were then fed on linseed cake, and 
ultimately did well." It is a popular impression in this 
country, how well founded I do not "know, that a strong 
decoction of the white ash, made by boiling the bruised twigs 
for an hour, and administered from half a gill to a gill, 
repeating the dose if necessary, is a sure antidote to the 
effects of laurel, if taken within a day of the poisoning.* 
Drenches of milk and castor oil are also resorted to for the 
same object. 

Active aperient medicine, so administered as to have its 
full effect, (see page 299,) is usually given to poisoned sheep. 
Mr. Youatt recommends, with obvious propriety, that " warm 
water be injected into the paunch by means of Read's 
apparatus, pumped out again, and this repeated until either 
vomiting is excited or the poison has been rendered harmless 
by dilution." There is a simple and inexpensive stomach 
pump composed of a hollow ball and perforated tube of India 
rubber worked by alternately squeezing out the air and fluid 
from the ball, for sale in all our American drug stores, which 
would answer for the above purpose admirably. Every 
analogy goes to show that cathartics are not rapid enough in 
their effects; and they do not, at best, avert the destructive 
results of virulent poisons which have been received into the 
stomach in quantities sufficient to produce death. 

Inflammation or the Rumen ok Paunch. — This is 
unknown in the United States, and as it is of very rare 
occurrence even in England, where ovine maladies generally 
flourish so vigorously, we have not much reason to fear its 
future advent — accordingly space will not be consumed here 
in describing it. 

Obstruction op the Maniplus. — It would appear from 
Mr. Youatt's statements (page 435,) that this is more common 

* Since the above was written I find this remedy Riven in Allen's "Domestic 
Animals," and also the following:—" Pour a gill of melted lard down the throat." 



INTESTINES AND MESENTAEY. 303 

than the preceding in England, and is a very serious malady ; 
but I do not consider it necessary to describe it here. 




THE INTESTINES AND MESENTARY. 

1. The duodenum. 

2. The jejunum. 

3. The ileum. 

4. The coecum, being the anterior prolongation of the colon, or first large intes- 

tine. The ileum opens into this (on the back side as presented in the cut,) 
about twelve inches from its extremity — the opening being defended by a 
valve. 

5. The large anterior portion of the colon, retaining its size (about three times 

that of the smaller intestines) for about two feet. 

6. 6. The colon tending toward the center. 

7. 7. The returning convolutions of the colon. 

8. The rectum or straight gut, communicating with the anus. 

9. 9 . The mesentary, or that portion of the peritoneum which retains the intes- 

tines in their places. 
10. The portion of the mesentary supporting the colon, &c. 
The united length of these intestines is upward of sixty feet. 



304 DROPSY, OR RED -WATER. 

Acute Dropsy, or Red -Water. — I have never seen 
this disease in our country, but as others think they have, I 
will introduce Mr. Spooner's description of it and of the 
proper mode of treating it. He says : 

" The disease understood by this term consists of effusion 
of reddish-colored serum or water in the abdomen, outside 
the bowels, and is the effect of increased action of the 
membrane called the peritoneum, which forms the outer coat 
of the bowels, and also lines the abdominal cavity. It is the 
natural office of this membrane to secrete a watery fluid, in 
order that the bowels should glide readily on each other, 
but when diseased action is set up in this membrane its 
secretion becomes excessive, and the serous portion of the 
blood, mingled with some of the red portion, becomes effused 
in this cavity, where it can not escape. 

"The disease is extremely common to lambs, both during 
the time they are with their dams, and after they have been 
weaned; and in them, as well as in sheep, it is very fatal, 
destroying the latter in twenty-four hours, and the former in 
less time. 

" The nature of the fluid effused is similar to the serum or 
watery portion of the blood, and as there is no active pain 
manifested, we are not justified in considering that it is the 
effect of inflammation, but one rather of debility of the vessels, 
and the existence of too much moisture in the system. It 
usually attacks both sheep and lambs when feeding on turnips, 
and particularly when there is a hoar-frost, and the sheep are 
folded on them during the night. From this circumstance it 
has been attributed to the effect of lying on the cold, damp 
ground, thus chilling the system, and particularly the abdo- 
men. But the sheep is an animal covered with wool, which 
can readily bear this exposure, and it is more likely to be 
produced by an excess of this cold, watery frost taken into 
the system, though perhaps assisted by cold lairs. 

" This view of the matter, too, is borne out by the fact, 
that when ewes in lamb are kept too much or too long on 
turnips, they often cast their lambs, which are found dead and 
water-bellied, as it is termed, that is, the abdomen is found 
distended with the same description of watery fluid as we 
find in red-water. Now, in this case, the ewe generally 
escapes disease, therefore it cannot be from external cold, 
but from the nature of the food ; so likewise it is most 
probable that such is the case with red-water. 

" The symptoms usually observed in sheep, are refusal to 



DROPSY, OR RED -WATER. 305 

feed or ruminate, a dull, heavy appearance, often attended with 
giddiness, a staring eye, obstinate costiveness, and sometimes 
the head is carried on one side. In lambs these symptoms 
are less decidedly marked, but the little animal lags behind its 
fellows, is unwilling to move, and is very dull, and dies in a 
shorter time than the sheep. Acute pain is rarely manifested 
in either sheep or lamb, but they are generally carried off in 
a short time. It is not at all uncommon for the shepherd to 
leave them apparently well over night, and to find one or 
more dead in the morning. 

"The treatment of the cases where the symptoms have fully 
manifested themselves will generally be unsuccessful ; but in 
the earliest stages, and before the disease has actually been 
manifested, much can be done. The sheep should be removed 
to a drier situation, and pasture or seeds or stubble should be 
substituted for the turnips, and the following medicine 
administered : — Sulphate of magnesia, one pound ; gentian, 
powdered, one ounce ; ginger, dissolved in warm water, one 
ounce. This is sufficient for eight or ten sheep, or double or 
treble the number of lambs. 

"Above all, it is desirable, by way of prevention, to 
remove the healthy sheep to some dry pasture, giving them 
good, sound hay, a little corn and turnips, only in moderation. 
Such, however, is the fatality of the disease, that it is a 
question whether it will not be more prudent to kill the sheep 
or lambs affected ; that is, if they are in any condition for the 
table, or unless from any particular reason it is very desirable 
to preserve them. Bleeding in these cases will not be 
prudent unless we are sure that inflammation is present, 
which we may expect if active pain is manifested. 

"Mr. W. Greaves advises the employment of tar as a 
preventive, and adduces the following instance of its success- 
ful employment. He says: — 'This disease is very prevalent in 
this part of Derbyshire, and a friend of mine, Mr. Cooper, ot 
Ashford, for many years lost one-fifth of his hoggets from 
red-water. Three or four years ago he was advised to bring 
them into a yard, and give each hogget a tablespoonful of 
common tar every fortnight, and the consequence has been, 
that although they are kept in every respect in the same way 
as before, and on the same ground, he has not lost one sheep 
since the adoption of this treatment.' 

"We give the above on the responsibility of the advisers, 
in case any farmers may be desirous of trying it, but we can 
give no opinion in favor of its efficacy." 



300 enteritis diarrhea. 

Enteritis, or Inflammation of the Coats of the 
Intestines. — For the same reasons which are given in regard 
to red-water, I present Mr. Youatt's account of this malady. 
He says: 

" liy this term is understood inflammation of most, if not 
all, of the coats of the intestines. * * Its early symptoms 
arc not to be distinguished from those of colic: possibly it is 
simple colic which then exists; but the disease does not yield 
to common remedies. The symptoms continue — they become 
more aggravated — the animal stamps the ground with his 
feet — he scratches it — ho attempts to strike his belly villi 
his hind-legs — he bends his knees as if he would lie down, 
but he dreads the pain resulting from the consentaneous 
action of the muscles of the belly, and their pressure on the 
contents of the belly; he looks round at his sides: at length 
he comes suddenly down — he rolls on his back: — he main- 
tains this position for some seconds, and then he suddenly 
starts and scrambles up again. The muzzle, the horns, and 
the feet are cold. The pulse is quick but small — the bowels 
are usually confined — obstinately so — the strength of the 
animal rapidly wastes away. Sometimes there is a determina- 
tion of blood to the head; the animal is heedless of all around 
it, the pupil is widely dilated — and to this delirium occasion- 
ally supervenes. * * * 

" The causes belong almost exclusively to the food or the 
locality. Enteritis is produced by stimulating and acrimoni- 
ous nutriment — by an excess of that which is healthful — by 
the injudicious administration of purgatives, by exposure to 
cold, and, more particularly, by the mingled influence of cold 
and wet. 

" The treatment is sufficiently plain — bleeding according 
to the age and condition of the animal, and the urgency of the 
symptoms — purgatives perseveringly administered until the 
bowels are opened, and the purging being afterwards kept up; 
the Epsom salts being employed to produce the first effect, 
and sulphur the second. The food to consist of mashes or 
gruel. No tonic to be allowed until the febrile stage is passed, 
or until violent diarrhea, difficult to check, has succeeded 
to the constipation." 

Diarrhea. — This disease is often more properly a nervous 
than a febrile one — in the former case, a morbid increase of 
the peristaltic motion of the bowels — in the latter, an inflam- 
mation of the mucous coat of the smaller intestines. But for 



DIARRHEA. 307 

the purpose of viewing it in connection with dysentery, to 
which it is sometimes closely allied, and into which it often 
runs — and which is clearly a febrile disease — it will be 
described here. 

Common diarrhea, purging, or scours, manifests itself 
simply by the copiousness and fluidity of the evacuations of 
dung. It is brought on by a sudden change from dry feed to 
green, or by the introduction of improper substances into the 
stomach. It is important clearly to distinguish this disease 
from dysentery. In diarrhea there is no apparent general 
fever ; the appetite remains good ; the stools are thin and 
watery, but unaccompanied with mucus (slime) and blood ; 
the odor of the dung is far less offensive than in dysentery ; 
the general condition of the animal is but little changed. 

Confinement to dry food for a day or two, and a gradual 
return to it, oftentimes suffice for its cure. I have rarely 
administered anything to grown sheep, and never have lost 
one from this disease. To lambs, especially if attacked in the 
fall, the disease is more serious. If the purging is severe, 
and especially if any mucus (slime) is observed with the 
dung, the feculent matter should be removed from the bowels 
by a gentle cathartic — as half a drachm of rhubarb, or an 
ounce of linseed-oil, or half an ounce of Epsom salts to a lamb. 
This should always be followed by an astringent, and in nine 
cases out of ten, the latter will serve in the first instance. I 
generally administer, say, £ oz. of prepared chalk in half a 
pint of tepid milk, once a day for two or three days, at the 
end of which, and frequently after the first dose, the purging 
will ordinarily have abated or entirely ceased.* 

The following is the formula of the English "sheep's 
cordial," usually prescribed in cases of diarrhea by the 
English veterinarians, and there can be no doubt it is a safe and 
excellent remedy — better probably than simple chalk and 
milk in severe cases : Take of prepared chalk one ounce, 
powdered catechu half an ounce, powdered ginger two 
drachms, and powdered opium half a drachm ; mix them with 
half a pint of peppermint water — give two or three table- 
spoonfuls morning and night to a grown sheep, and half 
that quantity to a lamb. 

Mr. Spooner says: — "If the cases are not severe, and 
entirely confined to diarrhea, astringents alone may be given ; 
but if any mucus is perceived, it will be proper to administer 

* This, and the two preceding paragraphs, are quoted with the alteration of a few 
words from my Sheep Husbandry in the South. 



308 DYSENTERY. 

a laxative in the first instance. * * * In cases of simple 
diarrhea the following astringent medicine wall be found very 
useful: — Powdered chalk, one ounce; catechu, four drachms; 
ginger, two drachms; opium, half drachm; to be mixed 
carefully with half a pint of peppermint water, and two or 
three tablespoonfuls given morning and night to a sheep, and 
half this quantity to a lamb." 

The following remedy for diarrhea appears in Mr. Robert 
Smith's prize essay On the Management of Sheep, already 
several times cited. He says: — "When the disease is 
observed to be coming on, the animals should be instantly 
changed to older or dry keeping. If the disease has advanced 
unnoticed, they should be taken up, kept warm, supplied with 
dry food, and given one ounce of castor oil in half a pint of 
gruel ; if the animal has much pain or straining, add twenty 
drops of laudanum, with rather more gruel; if the discharge 
still continues, and the bowels have been cleared by this dose, 
it will be proper to check it by astringents. The following is 
found to be an excellent medicine and rarely fails : — Four 
ounces logwood, one drachm of the extract of catechu, and 
two drachms of cinnamon, mixed with three pints of water, 
boiled for a quarter of an hour ; strain it off, then add sixty 
drops of laudanum. Give a pint night and morning as long 
as the flux continues." 

Dysentery. — Dysentery is caused by an inflammation of 
the mucous or inner coat of the larger intestines, causing a 
preternatural increase in their secretions, and a morbid alter- 
ation in the character of those secretions. It is frequently 
consequent on that form of diarrhea which is caused by an 
inflammation of the mucous coat of the smaller intestines. 
The inflammation extends throughout the whole alimentary 
canal, increases in virulence, and it becomes dysentery — a 
disease frequently dangerous and obstinate in its character, 
but fortunately not common among sheep in the United 
States. It differs from diarrhea in several readily observed 
particulars. There is evident fever; the appetite is capricious, 
ordinarily very feeble ; the stools are as thin or even thinner 
than in diarrhea, but much more slimy and sticky. As the 
erosion of the intestines advances, the dung is tinged with 
blood; its odor is intolerably offensive; and the animal 
rapidly wastes away. The course of the disease extends 
from a few days to several weeks. 



DYSENTERY. 309 

I have seen but a few well-defined cases of dysentery, and 
in the half-dozen instances which have occurred in my own 
flock, I have usually administered a couple of purges of linseed 
oil, followed by chalk and milk as in diarrhea (only doubling 
the dose of chalk,) and a few drops of laudanum, say twenty 
or thirty — with ginger and gentian. According to my 
recollection, about one-third of the cases have proved fatal, 
but they have usually been old and feeble sheep. * 

Mr. Youatt prescribes bleeding as indispensable, cathar- 
tics, mashes, gruel, etc. He adds : 

" Two doses of physic having been administered, the 
practitioner will probably have recourse to astringents. The 
sheep's cordial will probably supply him with the best ; and 
to this, tonics may soon begin to be added — an additional 
quantity of ginger may enter into the composition of the 
cordial, and gentian powder will be a useful auxiliary. With 
this — as an excellent stimulus to cause the sphincter of the 
anus to contract, and also the mouths of the innumerable 
secretory and exhalent vessels which open on the inner surface 
of the intestine — a half grain of strychnine may be com. 
bined. Smaller doses should be given for three or four days.'' 

The following remarks on dysentery and its treatment, 
occur in Mr. Robert Smith's prize essay: — "If the disease 
'has only just commenced, bleeding is highly necessary ; but 
if advanced, great caution should be observed, and the pulse 
attended to, to avoid lowering the system too much. To effect 
a cure, a reaction or perfect change in the system is neces- 
sary, and may be best produced by exciting the action of the 
skin. To effect this the animal should be immersed in a tub 
of hot water for fifteen minutes, then given one ounce of 
castor oil, with thirty drops of laudanum, in a little gruel, 
taking care that the animal be kept warm by wrapping, and 
placed in a warm shed. As the animal recovers, give gruel 
freely, with a more moderate dose of the above ; when the 
appetite returns, give mixed feed, such as hay and vegetables. 
During this disease care should be taken not to pull the 
wool, as it frequently falls off; a change of pasture, and not 

* This is also from Sheep Husbandry in the South, with a change of a few lines. 
Since it was written, I have had sheep die where one symptom of the fatal malady 
was dysentery. I have ceased to administer more than one purge — and the sheep 
which I have had thus affected have been in such a situation that I dared not resort to 
bleeding — notwithstanding the universal tide of modern authority in that direction, 
when it can be resorted to in an early stage of the disease. What I have mentioned 
as " hunger-rot" on page 204, frequently closes with dysentery; but the poverty and 
debility have reached an advanced stage before that sets in, — so that dysentery can 
not be considered the primary disease. 



310 CONSTIPATION — COLIC Oil STRETCHES. 

run too thick, is the best preventive. I have also found 
cither of the following recipes to stay its ravages when given 
in time; they may be adopted, where parties reject the hot 
water plan, with equal success: 

"No. 1. Four tablespoonfuls of common salt, one leu- 
spoonful of turpentine, mixed with a little water, and repeated 
in a milder dose when necessary. 

" No. 2. One teaspoonful of laudanum, one tablespoonful 
either gin or rum, well mixed and given; repeat the dose if 
necessary, or in a milder form. 

" No. 3. One ounce of alum in half a pint of warm water. 
The above three recipes will also stay the progress of 
diarrhea in lambs." 

Constipation. — There is a tendency toward this in 
pregnant ewes confined too long to dry feed, as has been 
already mentioned : and the appropriate remedy is to give a 
portion of green feed, (see pages 221-228.) Long confinement 
to dry feed produces a degree of costiveness in all sheep, which 
occasionally results in colic. The preventive is the same. 
The constipation of young lambs and its proper treatment 
have been sufficiently described at page 149. 

Colic, ok Stretches. — The cause of this disease is given' 
under preceding head. The paroxysms recur at intervals. 
During the continuance of them the sheep stretches itself 
incessantly and often twists about its head as if in severe 
pain. It lies down and rises frequently. The termination 
is occasionally fatal, unless the bowels are promptly opened 
by medicine. An ounce of Epsom salts dissolved in warm 
water, with a drachm of ginger and a teaspoonful of the 
essence of peppermint should be administered to a sheep and 
half as much to a lamb.* Three very excellent practical 
shepherds f write me — the first, that " he gives Epsom salts 
successfully for stretches :" the second, that he " uses a 
decoction of thoroughwort or boneset — that warm tea is 
also good :" the third, that he " employs castor oil, and if the 
case is obstinate, a moderate dose of aloes." Attacks of this 
disease become habitual to some sheep. It can always be pre- 
vented by giving green feed daily, or even once or twice a week. 



* Some farmers lift up the sheep by its hind-legs and shake it a little in that posi- 
tion, under the belief that it cures stretches. I have never tried it. Others " drag 
it about by the hind-legs 1" 

t Nelson A. Saxton, of Vergennes, Vermont; William R. Sanford, of Orwell, 
Vermont; and Prosper Elithorp, of Bridport, Vermont. 



IISTLAMMATION OF THE BOWELS. 311 

Braxt, or Inflammation of the Bowels. — Braxy is 
one of the formidable diseases of Europe, which I have never 
met with in this country, though Mr. Morrell says " it is not 
unusual to sheep kept in the latitude of ours." It is stated in 
the Mountain Shepherd's Manual that it chiefly attacks 
lambs about the end of autumn and beginning of winter, 
and that "inflammation of the bowels seems to be the 
most common form" of it. "When a sheep is observed 
to be restless, lying down and rising up frequently, and at 
intervals standing with its head down and its back raised, 
and when it appears to move with pain, inflammation may be 
suspected. The progress of the inflammation excites great 
pain ; but when mortification comes on the pain ceases ; and 
thus we may sometimes account for an animal dying suddenly 
when apparently well." " The causes of the inflammation," 
continues the same authority, " may be various. Costiveness 
from eating hard, dry food, drinking cold water while the 
body is over-heated, or being plunged into cold water while 
in that state, or suddenly chilled by a shower of rain or snow, 
may bring on this destructive malady. Feeding on strong, 
rank grass is also strongly suspected of inducing braxy. * * 
Along with long, rank leaves, others that are decayed and 
rotten or flaccid, may be eaten, and together with the too 
large quantity of such rank food, which young sheep are apt 
to swallow, contribute to excite fermentation ; and this, from 
the extrication of air, swells out the intestines, preventing due 
rumination ; and thus, while the food itself is vitiated and 
does mischief, the over-stretching of the bowels causes 
inflammation." Mr. Spooner thus gives the post mortem 
appearances where death has been produced by inflammation 
of the bowels: — "After death, the paunch is found distended 
with gas and with food — the latter in a state of putrid fermen- 
tation, and necessarily producing the former. The small 
intestines are in a gangrenous state, the liver is partly 
decomposed, and filled with vitiated bile; but, most of all, 
the spleen is gorged with blood, softened, enlarged, not 
unfrequently ruptured, and filled with tubercles and ulcers, 
with, in short, various appearances of disease, but all of them 
the consequence of inflammatiou principally belonging to this 
gland, and of the most serious character." 

Mr. Spooner recommends the following treatment : — "It 
should be met with very active treatment. Bleeding from 
the neck in the early stage, mild aperients, setons, and blisters 
appear to be called for ; but depletion should not be persisted 



312 woums — pinijjg. 

in long, and should be followed by plenty of gruel, vegetable 
tonics and good nursing." 

Worms. — Sheep, says Mr. Spooner, are subject in rare 
instances, in England, to a disease arising from the presence 
of worms in the intestines. Mr. Copeman, of Suffolk, found 
fifty lambs laboring under violent diarrhea. On examining 
sonic which died, he found large patches of inflammation on 
the villous membrane of the fourth stomach. "The small 
intestines contained thousands of the folded tape-worm ( Taenia 
filicata,) and about twenty-five of the large round worms, 
(Ascaris lumbricoides) with a large quantity — several ounces 
— of sand. The villous membrane was in a stage approaching 
to mortification." He ordered a total change in the diet, and 
the following medicine : Castor oil, 1 oz. ; powdered opium, 
3 grs. ; starch, 1 oz. ; boiling water sufficient to make a 
draught. Thin starch was given night and morning. The 
lambs improved. After administering this medicine, for four 
or five days, a stimulant was administered to destroy the 
parasites: linseed oil, 2 oz. ; oil of turpentine, 4 drachms. 
"One dose only was given to some of them, others required 
two, and a few had three or four in the course of the following 
month, and then all were well." I never heard but of a 
single alledged case, in the United States, of worms proving 
injurious in the intestines of sheep. 

Pining. — Under this name Mr. Spooner describes a very 
destructive malady in certain districts of Scotland, and 
particularly on the Cheviot Mountains. Mr. James Hogg, 
the "Ettrick Shepherd," lost upward of nine hundred sheep 
by its ravages, within the space of nine years. I do not think 
this peculiar disease, or anything analagous to it, has yet 
appeared in the United States, but as the limits of sheep 
breeding are rapidly extending to fresh regions, embracing 
new varieties and combinations of climate, soil and verdure, 
it may be erring on the safe side to include it in this catalogue 
of maladies. Mr. Hogg says : — " The distemper is a strange 
one ; it may effect a whole flock at once. The first symptoms 
to a practiced eye are lassitude of motion, and a heaviness about 
the pupil of the eye, indicating febrile action. On attempting 
to bleed the animal, the blood is thick and dark colored, and 
cannot be made to spring ; and when dead there is found but 
little blood in the carcass, and even the ventricles of the heart 
become as dry and pale as its skin. On the genuine pining 
farms, the disease is more fatal in dry than in wet seasons ; 



PINING. 313 

and most so at that season when, by the influence of the sun, 
the plants are less juicy, or early in autumn, when the grasses 
Avhich have pushed to seed become less succulent. Conse- 
quently, June and September are the most deadly months. 
If ever a farmer perceives a flock on such a farm, having a 
tl ushed appearance of more than ordinary rapid thriving, he is 
gone.* By that day eight days, when he goes out to look at 
them again, he will find them all lying, hanging their ears, 
running at the eyes, and lookiug at him like so many con- 
demned criminals. As the disease proceeds, the hair of the 
animal's face becomes dry, the wool assumes a bluish cast, and 
if the shepherd has not the means of changing the pasture, all 
those affected will fall in the course of a month." 

Pining is thought to proceed "from an enervated and 
costive habit, producible by want of proper exercise and 
eating astringent food." "The farms most liable to this 
disease are those dry, grassy farms, abounding in flats and 
ridges of white and flying bent. * * The lands which are 
now most subject to this disease were once in the same 
manner liable to the rot. As the draining of the sheep 
pastures proceeded, the rot gradually became extinct, and was 
ultimately superseded by the pining." Mr. Hogg and Mr. 
Laidlaw are of the opinion that the primary cause of the 
pining of sheep was the extirpation of the ground moles from 
their ranges. These, by throwing up the fresh earth on the 
surface, preserved the soft, succulent herbage : on their 
disappearance, it became coarse, harsh and unpalatable. f 
" In dripping seasons, shepherds, by strict attention in 
changing the sheep's pasture every day, may, in great 
measure, prevent its ravages ; but in a dry one, without 
infield land sown with succulent grasses or limed, it is 
impossible to prevent it." 

Mr. Spooner, after recommending the preparation of more 
succulent pasturage, and suggesting the culture of some plants 
in them having laxative qualities, such as the purging flax, 
adds : — " With regard to medicine, the Epsom and Glauber 
salts offer themselves as the most suitable, and the employ- 
ment of common salt will also be found of much service. " 

I feel constrained to say that the explanation above given 
of the nature and causes of the malady termed pining, are 
wholly unsatisfactory to my mind. 

* In this and the succeeding sentences I think we may suspect a little poetic 
exaggeration — rather a habitual tendency in the mind of the author of The Queens' 
Wake. 

t This cause for so general a result appears to me inadequate, not to say fanciful. 

14 



CHAPTER XXV. 

DISEASES OF THE OIKOULATOKY AND THE EESPIEATOET 

SYSTEM. 

THE PULSE PLACE AND MODE OF BLEEDING FEVER 

INFLAMMATORY FEVER MALIGNANT INFLAMMATORY FEVER 

TYPHUS FEVER CATARRH MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC 

CATARRH PNEUMONIA, OR INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS 

— PLEURITIS OR PLEURISY — CONSUMPTION, 

The Circulatory System consists of the heart, arteries 
and veins. It does not enter within the scope of this work 
to describe their functions and action. 

The Pulse. — The pulse in a healthy, full-grown sheep 
beats according to Gasparin sixty-five, according to Youatt 
about seventy, and according to Hurtel d' Arboval seventy- 
five times per minute. To ascertain the number of pulsations, 
the hand is placed on the left side where the beatings of the 
heart can be felt. When it is necessary to judge of the 
character of the pulse, it is felt at about the middle of the 
inside of the thigh, where the femoral artery passes obliquely 
across it. 

Place and Mode of Bleeding. — Bleeding from the ears 
or tail, as is commonly practiced, rarely extracts a quantity 
of blood sufficient to do any good where bleeding is indicated. 
To bleed from the eye-vein, the point of a knife is usually 
inserted near the lower extremity of the pouch below the 
eye, pressed down, and then a cut made inward toward the 
middle of the face. Daubenton recommends bleeding from 
the angular or cheek vein — "in the lower part of the cheek, 
at the spot where the root of the fourth tooth is place 1. 
which is the thickest part of the cheek, and is marked on the 
external surface of the bone of the upper jaw by a tubercle, 
sufficiently prominent to be very sensible to the finger when 



PLACE AND MODE OF BLEEDING. 315 

the skin of the cheek is touched. This tubercle is a certain 
index to the angular vein which is placed below. * * The 
shepherd takes the sheep between his legs ; his left hand more 
advanced than his right, which he places under the head, and 
grasps the under jaw near to the hinder extremity, in order 
to press the angular vein, which passes in that place, to make 
it swell ; he touches the right cheek at the spot nearly 
equi-distant from the eye and mouth, and there finds the 
tubercle which is to guide him, and also feels the angular vein 
swelled below this tubercle ; he then makes the incision from 
below upward, half a finger's breadth below the middle of 
the tubercle." 

"When the vein is no longer pressed upon, the bleeding 
will ordinarily cease. If not, a pin may be passed through 
the lips of the orifice, and a lock of wool tied round them. 

Mr. Youatt says : — " In cases of rheumatism, or garget, or 
local inflammation referable to the hind -quarters, it may some- 
times be advisable to bleed from the saphena or thigh vein. 
The assistance of another person is required here. The sheep 
must be laid on his side, on a table, or on some straw, the 
thigh from which it is intended to extract the blood being 
undermost. The other three legs must then be tied together, 
and the assistant must draw out and firmly hold the fourth, 
while the operator cuts away the hair from that portion of 
the thigh at which he intends to operate. A person 
acquainted with the anatomy of the part will at once put his 
finger on the course of the vein on the upper part of the thigh, 
and compress it, and thus cause it to become larger below the 
pressure ; but he who is not so much used to the operation 
will do right to pass a ligature (a piece of coarse tape will 
constitute the best,) round the hinder part of the thigh, which 
will render the vein sufficiently evident. It must be opened and 
afterward secured in the same manner as the cheek vein." 

But for thorough bleeding, the jugular vein is generally 
to be preferred. The sheep should be firmly held by the head 
by an assistant, and the body confined between his knees, with 
its rump against a wall. Some of the wool is then cut away 
from the middle of the neck over the jugular vein, and a 
ligature, brought in contact with the neck by opening the 
wool, is tied around it below the shorn spot near the shoulder. 
The vein will soon rise. The orifice may be secured, after 
bleeding, as described in the first of the preceding methods. 

The good effects of bleeding depend almost as much on 
the rapidity with which the blood is abstracted, as on the 



31G FEVER INFLAMMATORY FEVER. 

amount taken. This is especially true in acute disorders. 
Blacklock tersely remarks : — "Either bleed rapidly or bleed 
not at all." The orifice in the vein, therefore, should be of 
some length, and I need not inform the least experienced 
practitioner that it should be made lengthwise with the vein. 
A lancet is by far the best implement, and even a sharp- 
pointed pen -knife is preferable to the bungling fleam. 
Another important rule in bleeding is that, when indicated 
at all, it should always be resorted to as nearly as possible to 
the commencement of the malady. 

The amount of blood drawn should never be determined 
by admeasurement, but by constitutional effect — the lowering 
of the pulse, and indications of weakness. In urgent cases, :is, 
for example, apoplexy or cerebral inflammation, it would be 
proper to bleed until the sheep staggers or falls. The amount 
of blood in the sheep is less, in comparison, than that in the 
horse or ox. The blood of the horse constitutes about 
one-eighteenth part of his weight, that of the ox at least 
one-twentieth, while the sheep, in ordinary condition, is one- 
twenty-second. For this reason, we should be more cautious 
in bleeding the latter, especially in frequently resorting to it. 
Otherwise the vital powers will be rapidly and fatally 
prostrated. Many a sheep is destroyed by bleeding freely in 
disorders not requiring it, and in disorders which did require 
it at the commencement, but of which the inflammatory stage 
has passed. 

Fever. — Fever, without any particular local disease, is 
very rare in the United States. I never saw a case which I 
believed came strictly within this class. The sheep suffering 
from it is without appetite, retreats to a shady place and lies 
on the ground, pants if it is driven, has a high pulse, a clammy 
mouth, a dry, hot nose, hot feet, red eyes, and a dull, anxious 
countenance. On examination, the disease has not yet 
fastened upon any organ ; it is simple fever. At this stage it 
yields readily to moderate depletion — the abstraction of a 
small amount of blood and a dose of cathartic medicine. 

Inflammatory Fever. — Mr. Price, an English writer on 
Sheep Grazing and Management, gives the following account 
of this disease : — " The number of animals that die of this 
disorder in Romney Marsh is truly astonishing: I should 
suppose nearly four in a hundred yearly in some soils and 
situations, and at peculiar seasons, although every precaution 



MALIGNANT INFLAMMATORY FEVER. 317 

in stocking is taken to prevent it ; which if the graziers did 
not, they would lose half their flock annually. My opinion is 
that the soil of Rornney Marsh, being very rich, consequently 
the clover and grasses equally so, that sheep feeding on these 
rich pastures must be more subject to inflammation than those 
fed on poorer soils, particularly in the spring, when the young 
shoots of the grasses and natural clover are full of juices : 
besides, when in this state they are greedily eaten by the 
animals, which often proves fatal, particularly after a warm 
day or two. 

" On opening them the contents of the abdomen are more 
or less inflamed, and some parts are very dark colored, and 
emit a very offensive smell. Sometimes the heart or lungs 
appear to be primarily affected ; and sometimes the liver, 
bowels, and stomach, which is very easily perceived by the 
dark and livid appearance of the part. It is said that bad- 
mouthed sheep never die of this disease, because they can not 
feed on short, nutritious grass, but on coarse long herbage 
which does not enrich the blood. I am of opinion that it is 
an inflammatory disease, and that the only remedy is large 
bleedings, so as rapidly to lower the system." 

Malignant Inflammatory Fever. — This malady 
appears occasionally in England, but is common as a 
very destructive epizootic in France, where it is termed 
La Maladie de Sologne. It prevails in low, marshy districts 
where the sheep are wintered very poorly, folded in close, 
damp stables, and turned out in the spring to gorge them- 
selves on the Avatery, rapidly-growing vegetation. It appears 
toward the close of spring, and rages until August. Its early 
symptoms are, says Mr. Youatt, "suspension of rumination, 
loss of appetite, dullness, weeping from the eye, coldness of 
the ears, alternate shiverings and flashings of heat. Soon 
afterward the mouth and the breath become hot — the eyes 
are red — the pulse is accelerated, and weak and irregular — 
and there is a mucous discharge from the nostrils, to which 
succeeds bloody mucus, and then a mixture of purulent 
matter and blood. By degrees, the urine becomes bloody 
and the excrements are covered with grumous blood — the 
head and legs are swelled — the debility is extreme, and the 
animal dies in the course of eight or ten days. The greater 
part of the animals attacked by this disease perish. The 
sheep in the finest condition die soonest, and with greatest 
certainty." 



318 TYPHUS FEVER CATARRH. 

Dry food, salt, camphorated drinks and vegetable tonics, 
are usually administered. Bleedings are sometimes resorted 
to in the very earliest stage of the malady. Tessier, one of 
the ablest agricultural writers of France, suggests the follow- 
ing modes of prevention: — "To keep the flock more in the 
sheep house daring the rainy season; to feed better the ewes 
that are pregnant, or that are giving suck; never to milk 
the ewes;* not to turn the young lambs on those marshy 
situations on which the danger of being infected by the rot 
makes them afraid to place the mothers ; to keep salt within 
the reach both of the lambs and the ewes ; not to send the 
sheep to the field when the weather is cold, and to drive them 
back when storms threaten ; not to shear the sheep so early 
as they are accustomed to perform that operation ; and to 
endeavor by every possible means to drain the ponds and 
marshes with which that [La Sologne] and so many other 
districts of France abounds."! 

This formidable malady has never yet appeared in the 
United States. 

Typhus Fever. — Mr. Youatt expresses the opinion that 
this disease often destroys thousands of sheep in Great Britain, 
and that many of the diseases recognized as braxy are really 
of this class. I do not know that it ever occurs, as a distinct 
or idiopathic malady, in the United States; but I scarcely 
ever saw any febrile symptoms attend any form of ovine 
disease in our country which were not, or did not very soon 
become typhoid in their character. (See page 262.) English 
practitioners recommend "the lancet and Epsom salts/' at 
the " very commencement" of the disease. In any stage of 
any malady attended by the characteristic low form of fever, 
where I have seen bleeding and purgative medicines both 
resorted to, to any serious extent, their apparent effect has 
been uniformly to accelerate the fatal result. 

Catarrh. — Catarrh is an inflammation of the mucous 
membrane which lines the nasal passages — and it sometimes 
extends to the larynx and pharynx. In the first instance — 
where the lining of the nasal passages is alone and not very 
violently alfected — it is merely accompanied by an increased 
discharge of mucus, and is rarely attended with much danger. 

* The French, in many districts, milk their ewes and manufacture the milk into 
cheese. 

t Quoted by Youatt, at p. 481 



MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 319 

In this form it is usually termed snuffles, and high-bred 
English mutton sheep, in this country, are apt to manifest 
more or less of it, after every sudden change of weather. 
When the inflammation extends to the mucous lining of the 
larynx and pharynx, some degree of fever usually super- 
venes, accompanied by cough, and some loss of appetite. At 
this point the English veterinarians usually recommend 
bleeding and purging. Catarrh rarely attacks the American 
fine-wooled sheep with sufficient violence, in summer, to 
require the exhibition of remedies. I early found that 
depletion, in catarrh, in our severe winter months, rapidly 
produced that fatal prostration from which it is next to 
impossible to recover the sheep — entirely impossible, with- 
out bestowing an amount of time and care on it, costing 
far more than the price of any ordinary sheep. 

The best course is to prevent the disease by judicious 
precautions. With that amount of attention which every 
prudent flock-master should bestow on his sheep, the hardy 
American Merino is little subject to it. Good, comfortable, 
but well-ventilated shelters, constantly accessible to the 
sheep in winter, with a proper supply of food regularly admin- 
istered, is usually a sufficient safeguard; and after some 
years of experience, during which I have tried a variety of 
experiments on this disease, I resort to no other remedies — 
in other words, I do nothing for those occasional cases of 
ordinary catarrh which arise in my flock ; and they never 
prove fatal. 

Malignant Epizootic Catarrh. — In "Sheep Husbandry 
in the South," from which the preceding paragraph is trans- 
ferred, I give an extended account of a disease which 
prevailed with destructive violence in the State of New York 
in the winter of 1S46-47. Some flock-masters lost half, 
others three-quarters, and a few seven-eighths of their flocks. 
One individual within a few miles of me lost five hundred 
out of eight hundred — another nine hundred out of one 
thousand. But these severe losses fell mainly on the holders 
of the delicate Saxon sheep, and perhaps, generally, on those 
possessing neither the best accommodations, nor the greatest 
degree of energy and skill. 

I lost about fifty sheep by the disease. Up to February, my 
sheep remained apparently perfectly sound, and they were in 
good flesh. Each flock had excellent shelters, were fed 
regularly, etc., and although sheep were beginning to perish 



320 MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 

about the country, my uniform previous impunity in these 
"bad Avinters" led me to entertain no apprehensions of the 
prevailing epizootic. About the first of February my sheep 
Avent into the charge of a new man, hired upon the highest 
recommendations. A fe\v days after I Avas called away from 
home for a week. The Aveather during my absence Avas, a 
part of the time, very severe. The sheep house occupied by 
one flock containing one hundred sheep, was, Avith the 
exception of two doors, as close a room as can be made by 
nailing on the wall-boards vertically and Avithout lapping, as 
is common on our Northern barns. One of the doors was 
always left open, to permit the free ingress and egress of 
the sheep, and for necessary ventilation. A half dozen ewes, 
which had been untimely impregnated by a neighbor's ram, 
were on the point of lambing, and it being safer to confine 
the ewes in a warm room over night, the shepherd, instead 
of removing them to such a room, confined the whole flock in 
the sheep house eA-ery night, and rendered it warm by closing 
both doors. After two or three hours, the air must have 
become excessively impure. On entering the sheep house, on 
my return, I was at once struck with its highly offensive 
smell. A change, too, slight but ominous, had taken place in 
the appearance of a part of the flock. They showed no signs 
of A r iolent colds, I heard no coughing, sneezing, or labored 
respiration — and the only indication of catarrh which I 
noticed, was a nasal discharge, by a feAV sheep. But these 
having this nasal discharge, and some others, looked dull 
and drooping; their eyes ran a little — Avere partially closed, 
the lachrymal caruncle and lids looked pale — their movements 
were languid — and the shepherd complained that they did 
not eat quite so well as the others. The pulse was nearly 
natural — though I thought a trifle too languid. 

Not knowing what the disease was — and fully believing 
that depletion by bleeding or physic was not called for, I 
contented myself Avith thoroughly purifying the sheep house — 
seeing that the feeding, etc.,* Avas managed Avith the greatest 
regularity — and closely watching the further symptoms of 
disease in the flock. In about a week, the above described 
symptoms Avere evidently aggravated, and there had been a 
rapid emaciation, accompanied with debility, in the sheep 
first attacked. The countenance was exceedingly dull and 

* They had been fed with bright hay three times a day and turnips. As those 
affected did not eat their turnips well, I commenced feeding some oats in addition to 
the turnips. I believed that a generous diet was called for and I gave it. 



MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 321 

drooping — the eye kept more than half closed — the 
caruncle, lids, etc., almost bloodless — a gummy, yellow 
secretion below the eye — thick glutinous mucus adhering 
in and about the nostrils — appetite feeble — pulse languid — 
and the muscular energy greatly prostrated. Nothing un- 
usual was yet noticed about their stools or urine. 

I now had all the diseased sheep removed from the flock, 
and placed in rooms the temperature of which could easily be 
regulated. I commenced giving slight tonics and stimulants, 
such as gentian, ginger, etc., but apparently with no material 
effect. They rapidly grew weaker, stumbled and fell as they 
walked, and soon became unable to rise. The appetite grew 
feebler — the mucus at the nose, in some instances tinged 
with dark grumous blood — the respiration oppressed, and 
they died within a day or two after they became unable 
to rise. 

I proceeded to make post mortem examinations with great 
care and deliberation — aided by Dr. Frederick Hyde, now 
Professor of Anatomy in the Geneva Medical College.* My 
minutes of those examinations have already been partially 
published in " Sheep Husbandry in the South ;" and they are 
quite too long for insertion here. 

Laboring very strongly under the impression that the seat 
of the disease would be found in the lungs, or some of the 
abdominal viscera, no examination was made, in the first six 
cases, of the interior organs of the head and neck. But 
failing to discover any sufficient indications of primary disease 
among the latter to account for the results, I, in the next 
ease, examined the bronchial tubes, the lower portions of 
the windpipe, esophagus, &c, and found them all in an 
apparently healthy condition. Before tracing these passages 
to the throat, I removed the upper portion of the skull and 
carefully examined the brain and its investing membranes. 
All seemed in a perfectly normal state. I then made a 
longitudinal section down through the middle part of the 
whole head, and the seat and character of the fatal malady 
stood at once revealed. The mucous membrane lining the 
whole nasal cavity, highly congested and thickened through- 
out its whole extent, betrayed the most intense inflammation. 
At the junction of the cellular ethmoid bones with the cribri- 



* To guard against any misapprehensions on this point, I may be permitted to 
say that we had a •well warmed room — all the proper instruments for making such an 
examination — and several hours were usually devoted to each case. 
14* 



822 MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 

form plate — in the ethmoidal cells — slight ulcers were forming 
on the membraneous lining. The inflammation also extended 
to the mucous membrane of the pharynx, and say three inches 
of the upper portion of the esophagus. Here it rather 
abruptly terminated. Fifteen or twenty more cases were 
examined, and so far as the seat and character of the disease 
of the mucous membrane was concerned, the appearances 
were uniform in every instance. 

This was obviously a species of catarrh — though the 
feverish symptoms which ordinarily accompany a severe 
attack of that disease were wanting. From the very outset, 
and in every case, the type of the disease was typhoid — 
sinking — and rapidly tending to fatal prostration. 

I was anxious, of course, to reduce the local inflammation 
of the membranes lining the head, but felt perfectly satisfied 
there was too much debility to admit of depletory treatment. 
Nevertheless, to make myself sure, and to gratify the curiosity 
of others, I bled in three or four instances, as near as possible 
to the commencement of the attack. As anticipated, it 
evidently hastened the fatal termination. Blisters not being 
regarded as available under all the circumstances, I blew Scotch 
snuff (through paper tubes) up the nostrils of some of the 
sheep, to cause the removal, by sneezing, of the mucus which 
seriously obstructed respiration, and in the faint hope that it 
might produce a new action, by which an increased mucous 
secretion would be excited and the congested membrane 
relieved. This was the only local treatment resorted to. 

The next step was to fix on the constitutional treatment. 
The liver had been shown to be in a torpid state. There was 
a functional derangement in the mesenteric and probably 
other glands, and a want of activity in the general secretory 
system. What medicine would stimulate the liver, cause it 
to secrete the proper quantity as well as quality of bile, 
change the morbid action of the glands and secretory system, 
and restore activity and health to the vital functions generally? 
In my judgment, nothing promised so well as mercury; and 
by its well known effect on the entire secretory system, it 
Avould powerfully tend to relieve the congested membranes of 
the head. The proto- chloride of mercury (calomel) was 
supposed to possess too much specific gravity to reach the 
fourth stomach, with any certainty, administered in a liquid ; 
and if administered as a ball or pill, it would be almost sure 
not to reach that stomach. The dissolved bi-chloride of 
mercury (corrosive sublimate) was therefore hit upon. One 



MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 323 

grain was dissolved in two ounces of water, and one-half 
ounce of the water (or one-eighth of a grain of corrosive 
sublimate) was exhibited in a day, in two doses. 

As constipation existed in most of the cases, it was 
thought that the bowels required to be stimulated into 
action, and slightly evacuated by a mild laxative. Having 
noticed in similar cases of debility and torpor of the intestinal 
canal, that purgation is often followed by a serious diarrhea, 
difficult to correct, and leading to rapid prostration, and there 
being no intestinal irritation to suffer additional excitement, I 
thought that rhubarb — from its well known tendency to give 
tone to the bowels, and its secondary effect as a mild astrin- 
gent — was particularly indicated. It was given in a decoction 
— the equivalent of ten or fifteen grains at a dose — accompa- 
nied with ginger and gentian, in infusion. To a portion of 
the sheep I administered the rhubarb and its adjuvants alone ; 
to others I gave the bi-chloride of mercury in addition. 

Not a single sheep recovered after the emaciation and 
debility had proceeded to any great extent. One such only 
lingered along until shearing. Its wool gradually dropped 
off: it seemed to rally a little once or twice and then relapse ; 
and it perished one night in a rain-storm. In the generality 
of instances the time from the first observed symptoms until 
death, varied from ten to fifteen days. A few died in a 
shorter time. I thought that the treatment produced favor- 
able effects in some instances — particularly when resorted to 
at the commencement of the disease. At all events, some of 
the sheep recovered under the treatment — particularly under 
that including the exhibition of the bi-chloride of mercury — 
and very few, if any, recovered without any treatment. 
Candor compels me to say, however, that the results of the 
treatment were far from being satisfactory — that the cases of 
recovery were much fewer than the deaths. I have merely 
stated what I believe to be the facts in the premises ; I do not 
feel prepared to make any recommendations. As I now look 
back on, and quote from my records written seventeen years 
ago, I feel greatly disposed to doubt whether more recovered 
under my treatment than would have recovered without it. 
At all events, I prefer that view of the case should be taken, 
so that if a similar epizootic should recur, those called upon 
to combat it will start without any misconceptions derived 
from me. I have given my treatment because it constitutes 
part of the true history of the case ; and because records of 
failures are not without their value. 



324 epizootic OF 1846-47. 

The epizootic gradually abated towards spring, and my 
flock regained its perfect health. Near spring, many farmers 
found what seemed to them an unusual number of "grubs" in 
the heads of their sheep which died of the prevailing epizootic, 
and therefore they attributed the disease to this cause — and 
this seemed to be the prevailing popular opinion. In some 
of the latest cases in my flock, I discovered more or less 
grubs ; and, in two or three instances, an unusual number. 
In other cases, where the external symptoms and the post 
mortem appearances were almost identical, no grubs were to 
be seen — convincing proof that they had nothing to do in 
originating this destructive disease. 

The whole value of the preceding records, in connection 
with the omitted post mortem examinations, — if they have 
any — is in enabling us to determine what the sheep epizootic 
of 1846-47 was, and what it was not. I am not prepared to 
aver that it was identically the same with the "distemper" 
which used to sweep off from twenty to forty or fifty per 
cent, of carelessly managed flocks as often as once in five or 
six winters — and which, though greatly mitigated in the 
frequency and severity of its visitations, continues to destroy 
more American sheep than all other maladies combined. It 
is, indeed, the only malady which proves mortal on a large 
scale. But, except that the "distemper" of the "bad winters" 
sometimes closes with dysentery, I never saw any difference 
between its general external symptoms and that of the epizo- 
otic of 1846-47. If their identity should be established, it 
would be a most important point gained ; for then we should 
know against what enemy to concentrate our efforts, instead 
of "doctoring" for rot, inflammation of the lungs, bra. \y, 
consumption, grub in the head, etc., etc. — each of which 
maladies the winter " distemper " of this climate has often 
been pronounced to be. Unfortunately, I have had no 
opportunities to make post mortem examinations of sheep 
dying of that disease since 1846-47. "Without this, all other 
observations are uncertain and comparatively valueless. The 
farmer who finds a prevailing and mortal disease among his 
sheep, and who is not sufficiently familiar with the internal 
structures and appearances of the animal to make an intelli- 
gent examination of them after death, should always avail 
himself of the services of a well educated physician.* How- 

* I never knew such a physician who disdained to bestow his skill, on proper 
occasion, on a brute. ' : Where Allah hath deigned to bestow life, and a sense of pain 
and pleasure," said Adonbec el Hakim, " it were sinful pride should the sage, whom 
he has enlightened, refuse to prolong existence or assuage agony." 



INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS. 325 

ever little the latter may be acquainted with veterinary 
practice, he will be entirely competent to decide, in a great 
majority of cases, what organ is the seat of a mortal malady:* 
and it will be far safer to rely on his general directions, 
founded on established principles and on a knowledge of the 
properties of remedial agents, than to make experiments at 
random, or what is equally dangerous, call in the aid of an 
ignorant quack. 

Pneumonia, or Inflammation of the Lungs. — Pneu- 
monia, or inflammation of the lungs, is not a common disease 
in the Northern States, but undoubted cases of it sometimes 
occur, after sheep have been exposed to sudden cold — 
particularly when recently shorn. The adhesions occasionally 
witnessed between the lungs and pleura of slaughtered sheep, 
betray the former existence of this disease — though in many 
instances it was so slight as to be mistaken, in the time of it, for 
a hard cold. The sheep laboring under pneumonia is dull, 
ceases to ruminate, neglects its food, drinks frequently and 
largely, and its breathing is rapid and laborious. The eye is 
clouded — the nose discharges a tenacious, fetid matter — the 
teeth are ground frequently, so that the sound is audible to 
some distance. The pulse is at first hard and rapid — some- 
times intermittent; but before death it becomes weak. During 
the height of the fever, the flanks heave violently. There is a 
hard, painful cough during the first stages of the disease. 
This becomes weaker, and seems to be accompanied with 
more pain as death approaches. 

After death, the lungs are found more or less hepatized, 
i. e., permanently condensed, and engorged with blood, so 
that their structure resembles that of the hepar, or liver — 
and they have so far lost their integrity that they are torn 
asunder by the slightest force. 

It may be well in this place to remark that when sheep 
die from any cause with their blood in them, the lungs have a 
dark hepatized appearance. But it can be readily decided 
whether they are actually hepatized or not, by compressing 

* A healthy situation of the lungs, bronchial tubes, &c, would at once show the 
absence of pneumonia, consumption, bronchitis, etc. The healthy condition of the 
liver would show the absence of rot — the healthy condition of the intestines, the 
absence of braxy, etc. Were any of those organs found diseased, it might not be so 
easy in all instances to decide on the precise character of the malady, — but enough at 
least would be learned to furnish a guide to the general treatment in subsequent cases; 
and at all events, to avoid exasperating the disease by entirely improper remedies. It 
is much to be hoped that a professional body of educated and learned veterinarians 
will soon be spread throughout our country. 



326 BRONCHITIS PLEURISY. 

the windpipe, so that air can not escape through it, and then 
between such compression and the body of the lungs, in a 
closely fitting orifice, insert a goose quill or other tube, and 
continue to blow until the lungs are inflated so far as they can 
be. As they inflate they will become lighter colored, and 
plainly manifest their cellular structure. If any portions of 
them can not be inflated, and retain their dark, liver-like 
consistency and color, they exhibit hepatization — the result 
of high inflammatory action — and a state utterly incompati- 
ble, in the living animal, with the discharge of the natural 
functions of the lungs. 

With the treatment of pneumonia, I have but little 
personal experience. In the first or inflammatory stages of 
the disease, bleeding and aperients are clearly called for. Mr. 
Spooner recommends " early and copious bleeding, repeated, 
if necessary, in a few hours — this followed by aperient 
medicines, such as two ounces of Epsom salts, which may be 
repeated in smaller doses if the bowels are not sufficiently 
relaxed. The following sedative may also be given with 
gruel twice a day : — nitrate of potash, one drachm ; digitalis 
powdered, one scruple ; tartarized antimony, one scruple." 

The few cases I have seen have been of a sub-acute charac- 
ter, and would not bear treatment so decided. Mr. Youatt 
remarks: — "Depletion maybe of inestimable value during the 
continuance — the short continuance — of the febrile state; but 
excitation like this will soon be followed by corresponding 
exhaustion, and then the bleeding and the purging would be 
murderous expedients, and gentian, ginger, and the spirit of 
nitrous ether will afford the only hope of cure." 

Bronchitis. — It would be difficult to suppose that where 
sheep are subject to pneumonia they would not also be subject 
to bronchitis — which is an inflammation of the mucous mem- 
brane which lines the bronchial tubes — the air-passages of the 
lungs. I have seen no cases, however, which I have been 
able to identify as bronchitis, and have examined no subjects, 
after death, which exhibited its characteristic lesions. Its 
symptoms are those of an ordinary cold, but attended with 
more fever and a tenderness of the throat and belly when 
pressed upon. Treatment: Administer salt in doses from l£ 
to 2 oz., with 6 or 8 oz. of lime-water, given in some other 
part of the day. This is Mr. Youatt's prescription. 

Pleuritis or Pleurisy. — I have seen no instance of this 
disease. Mr. Spooner says of it: — "This disease consists of 



CONSUMPTION. 327 

inflammation of the pleura or membrane lining the chest. It 
is produced by the same causes as inflammation of the lungs, 
with which it may be accompanied, and particularly by any 
sudden changes that may chill the whole system. It often 
occurs from this cause after sheep washing, when it is very 
common to find a few sheep failing and in proportion to the 
want of care exercised. It is not unusual, in examining the 
bodies of sheep, to find the lungs in part adhering to the sides 
of the chest, and the animal thus affected generally loses flesh. 
This adhesion is the effect of pleurisy, and another and still 
more dangerous result is water in the chest. 

" The symptoms of this disease are in many respects like 
those of inflammation of the lungs, but it is attended occasion- 
ally by severe pain and by a variation of the symptoms 
generally, such as a harder and more defined pulse and more 
warmth of the body. The treatment must consist of active 
bleeding in the first instance ; and in this disease the sheep can 
bear blood-letting to a greater extent than in most diseases. 
The bleeding may be repeated if necessary, setons may be 
inserted in the brisket, the bowels moderately relaxed, and in 
other respects the same treatment observed as advised for 
inflamed lungs." 

Consumption. — This has never, so far as my knowledge 
extends, appeared in American flocks. Mr. Youatt thus 
describes it: — "There is another and still more frequent and 
equally fatal disease of the lungs, [with acute inflammation,] 
but it assumes an insidious character, and is not recognized 
until irreparable mischief is effected, viz., sub-acute, or 
chronic inflammation of the lungs, and leading on to disor- 
ganization of a peculiar character — tubercles in the lungs, 
and terminating in phthisis [consumption.] The sheep is 
observed to cough — he feeds well and he is in tolerable 
condition — if he does not improve quite so fast as his 
companions, still he is not losing ground, and the farmer takes 
little or no notice of his ailment. * * * He is driven to 
the market and he is slaughtered, and the meat looks and 
sells well ; but in what state are the lungs ? Let him who is 
in the habit of observing the plucks of the sheep, as they hang 
by the butcher's door, answer the question. He sees plenty 
of sound lungs from oxen — he sees the lungs of the calf in a 
beautifully healthy state; but he does not see one lung in 
three belonging to the sheep that is unscathed by disease — 
whose mottled surface does not betray inflammation of the 



328 CONSUMPTION. 

investing membranes, and in the substance of which there are 
not numerous minute concretions — tubercles. 

" Perhaps these lesions quickly follow sub-acute inflamma- 
tion of the lungs, but they do not rapidly increase afterwards. 
Their existence produces a slight cough which scarcely 
interferes with health. * * * But what is the case, and 
that not unfrequently, with the ram and the ewe when they 
get three or four years old? The cough continues — it 
increases — a pallidness of the lips, or of the conjunctiva, is 
observed — a gradual loss of flesh — an occasional or constant 
diarrhea, which yields for a while to proper medicine, but 
returns again and again until it wears the animal away. Of 
how many diseases is this cough and gradual wasting the 
termination ? It is the frequent winding up of turnsick ; it is 
the companion and child of rot. 

" This disease is especially prevalent in low and moist 
pastures, and it is of most frequent occurrence in spring and 
in autumn, and when the weather at those seasons is unusu- 
ally cold and changeable. It is almost useless to enter into 
the consideration of treatment. It woidd consist in a change 
to dry and wholesome and somewhat abundant pasture — the 
placing of salt within the reach of the animal, and, if he Avas 
valued, the administration of the hydriodate of potash, in 
doses of three grains, morning and night, and gradually 
increasing the dose to twelve grains. With regard, however, 
to the common run of sheep — when wasting has commenced, 
and is accompanied by cough or dysentery, the most honest 
and profitable advice which the surgeon could give to the 
farmer would be, to send the animal to the butcher while the 
carcass will readily sell." 

Some American writers appear to think they have 
recognized this disease among the sheep of our country. 
Consumption is considered distinctly hereditary in almost all 
domestic animals. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DISEASES OP THE GENEKATIYE AND UKINAEY OKGANS. 

ABORTION INVERSION OF THE WOMB GARGET PARTU- 
RIENT OR PUERPERAL FEVER CYSTITIS, OR INFLAMMATION 

OF THE BLADDER. 

A portion of the more ordinary diseases of the generative 
system have been described in the Chapters devoted to the 
treatment of sheep during the different seasons of the year. 

Abortion. — Abortion is unusual among sheep in our 
country ; and when it occurs, is usually produced by some 
violence, such as the hooking of a cow, the kick of a wanton 
colt, the heavy sidewise blow inflicted by the horns of a 
cross ram as he forces his way impatiently up to the rack or 
feeding-trough, or the like. Severe running, leaping, or the 
rough, careless handling of the operator for hoof-rot, some- 
times produces it. There seems to be an occasional ewe 
which is habitually subject to it from some unknown cause. 
Mr. Youatt and Mr. Spooner both mention that it is thought 
sometimes to occur in England in consequence of eating salt. 
The constant habit of feeding salt freely at all periods of 
the year, during my whole life, without, so far as could be 
reasonably judged, producing such an effect in a single 
instance, leads one wholly to discredit this hypothesis. Mr. 
Spooner says : — " But what causes it more than anything else 
is the unlimited use of turnips and succulent food." I have 
no experience in the "unlimited" winter feeding of any green 
food ; but I have fed breeding ewes about a pound of turnips 
per head, sometimes a trifle more, daily, during their entire 
pregnancy for many years; and by comparing them with 
flocks about me restricted to dry feed, I have always been 
satisfied that a moderate supply of green feed tended decidedly 
to prevent abortion. * 



* Mr. Youatt gives another singular cause of abortion — "continued intercourse 
with the ram after the period of gestation has considerably advanced ;" and he says : 



330 INVERSION OF WOMB GARGET. 

So far as this lias fallen under my observation, it has 
occurred oftenest about the close of the third or the beginning 
of the fourth month of pregnancy. I have never known it to 
assume that semi-infectious or enzootical character which it oc- 
casionally takes in our great dairies of cows — though, as a matter 
of precaution, as well as to give her a better chance, I always 
prefer to have the ewe that has miscarried, drawn from the 
breeding flock and put in "the hospital." The aborted lamb 
and everything that comes with it from the vagina, is also 
removed from the sheep yard. The lamb is almost invariably 
dead at birth. I have not been in the habit of administering 
any medicine to the ewe. * She usually becomes poor and 
weak unless nursed with great care — her wool ceases to grow, 
and is very apt to be shed off. Sometimes she scarcely 
recovers her condition during the ensuing summer. It is a 
very great injury to a ewe to abort, and if she does so the 
second time, she should invariably be excluded from the 
breeding flock. 

Inversion of the Womb. — This has been sufficiently 
noticed at page 145 of this work. 

Garget. — This has also been noticed at page 157 under 
the head of Inflamed Udder. In high-fed English ewes it 
assumes a more acute and dangerous form than is there 
described. Hard kernels or tumors form in the udder. The 
udder itself becomes much swollen, with great heat and 
tenderness. An ounce or two of Epsom salts with a drachm 
of ginger, should be administered. If matter forms in any 
part of the udder, a deep incision should at once be made, the 
pus squeezed out, the parts well fomented, and if any offensive 
smell proceeds from the wound it should be bathed or 
syringed two or three times a day with a weak solution of 
chloride of lime, until it assumes a healthy action. 

In the place of the iodine ointment recommended by me 
(at page 15S) as an application to the udder from the earliest 



" This is frequently the case among the mountain and ;the moor sheep." American 
sheep are more modest ! I will not undertake to say such a thing never occurs, but I 
never yet saw or heard of one of our sheep taking the ram after the beginning of 
pregnancy, though nothing is more common than to allow rams to run with " iu- 
[ambed" ewes the entire winter. 

* Mr. Spooner recommends giving Epsom salts )i oz., tincture of opium 1 drachm, 
powdered camphor l A drachm, with nourishing gruel : the two latter medicines to be 
repeated the next day, but not the salts unless the bowels are constipated. Mr. 
Youatt says, "if the fuetus has been long dead — shown by the fetid smell and the 
vaginal discharge — the parts should be washed with a weak solution of the chloride 
of lime ; and some of it also injected into the womb." 



PARTURIENT FEVER. 331 

stage of the disease, Mr. Spooner recommends camphor 
ointment, (see List of Medicines,) and Mr. Youatt one 
drachm of camphor ointment, one drachm of mercurial 
ointment, and one ounce of elder ointment, well incor- 
porated together. Both also rely greatly on constant 
fomentation with hot water, without the ingredients which I 
mentioned as proper to mix with it. (See page 158.) But 
those ingredients must add to its salutary effects. 

Parturient or Puerperal Pever. — This disease, as 
already remarked, is very unusual hi this country, and is, so 
far as I have learned, confined exclusively to English sheep. 
I have never seen a case of it. I shall therefore present the 
following account of its symptoms and treatment from a 
Prize Essay on the subject, prepared for the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of England by Mr. Isaac Seaman. He says : 

" Parturient fever may be defined a disease of low inflam- 
matory character, involving more or less extensively the 
organs of reproduction, digestion and respiration ; the brain 
and spinal marrow are also involved. There is generally a 
greater determination of blood to some organs than to others ; 
mostly the uterus is first and principally affected, in some the 
bowels and lining membrane of the abdomen (peritoneum,) in 
others the lungs ; the brain and spinal marrow are often very 
much affected. It shows itself generally during the last twenty 
days' gestation, and within the first six days after parturition : 
the average duration of the disease is from seven to fourteen 
days ; some die in two days while others linger a month. 

" Causes. — Any circumstance or agency which depresses 
the power of the system, insufficient or improper food, close 
folding, exposure to fatigue, to cold, and moisture, may be 
considered causes of the affection. I have repeatedly noticed, 
where ewes about a month before lambing have been removed 
from a sufficiency of wholesome food to other possessing less 
nutritive qualities, they have suffered greatly from parturient 
fever. The practice of fattening sheep and ewes being fed 
upon the same piece of turnips, (the best parts of which are 
consumed by the former, whilst the roots and other inferior 
parts are consumed by the latter,) ought to be abandoned ; 
a small fold, too — a circumstance so essential to the develop- 
ment of fat in the one, ichilst highly injurious to the pregnant 
ewe, to whom exercise is of the greatest importance for 
the maintenance of health.* Moist and warm seasons, 

* I have italicised these words, so strongly confirmatory of the views expressed 
in the closing portion of Chapter XIX— extending from page 221 to 228 of this volume. 



332 TARTURIENT FEVER. 

vegetables growing luxuriantly, and the non-supply of dry, 
farinaceous food, are alike productive of the affection. Fat 
condition is thought to be a grand cause of the disease. I 
certainly have noticed that the Sussex Downs (a breed most 
disposed to collect fat,) suffer most; and, as I before stated, a 
delicate sheep ; but losses have been sustained from the fact 
that the breeder, thinking them too fat, a short time before 
the full period of gestation lessens the supply of food, which 
is plentiful and nutritious, and substitutes that of a poorer 
nature. * * * ****** 

" Symptoms. — The most early symptom that marks the 
commencement of this disease — first the ewe suddenly leaves 
her food, twitches both hind-legs and ears, and returns again 
to her food; during the next two or three days she eats but 
little, appears dull and stupid ; after this time there is a 
degree of general weakness, loss of appetite and giddiness, 
and a discharge of dark color from the vagina ; whilst the 
flock is driven from fold to fold the affected sheep loiters 
behind and staggers in her gait, the head is carried downw aid, 
and the eyelids partly closed. If parturition takes place 
during this stage of the disease, and the animal is kept warm 
and carefully nursed, recovery will frequently take place in 
two or three days ; if, on the contrary, no relief is afforded, 
symptoms of a typhoid character present themselves ; the 
animal is found in one corner of the fold, the head down, 
and extremely uneasy, the body is frequently struck with the 
hind feet, a dark colored fetid discharge continues to flow 
from the vagina, and there is great prostration of strength. 
A pair of lambs are now often expelled in a high state of 
putrefaction; and the ewe down and unable to rise, the head is 
crouching upon the ground, and there is extreme insensibility ; 
the skin may be punctured and the finger placed under the 
eyelids without giving any evidence of pain ; the animal now 
rapidly sinks and dies, often in three or four days from 
the commencement of the attack. Ewes that recover suffer 
afterward for some time great weakness, and many parts of 
the body become denuded of wool. 

" Treatment. — The ewe immediately noticed ill should be 
removed from the flock to a warm fold apart from all other 
sheep, and be fed with oatmeal gruel, bruised oats and cut 
hay, with a little linseed cake. If in two or three days the 
patient continues ill, is dull and weak, a dark colored fetid 
discharge from the vagina, and apparently uneasy, an attempt 
to remove the lambs should be made. The lambs in a great 



PARTURIENT FEVER. 333 

majority of cases at this period are dead, and their decompo- 
sition (that is, giving off putrid matter,) is a frequent cause of 
giddiness and stupor in the ewe. If the os uteri (the 
entrance into the womb) is not sufficiently dilated to admit 
of the hand of the operator, the vaginal cavity and os uteri 
should be smeared every three hours with the extract of 
belladonna, and medicine as follows, given : — Calomel eight 
grains, extract hyoscyamus one drachni, oatmeal gruel eight 
ounces — mix and give two tablespoonfuls twice a day. 
Epsom salts two ounces, nitre half ounce, carbonate of soda 
two ounces, water one pint — mix and give two wine-glass- 
fuls at the same time the former mixture is given. Let both 
mixtures be kept in separate bottles, and well shaken before 
given. The bowels being operated upon, omit both former 
prescriptions, and give the following : — Nitre half ounce, 
carbonate of soda one ounce, camphor one drachm, water 
eight ounces — a wine-glassful to be given twice a day. Feed 
the ewe principally upon gruel and milk, or linseed porridge. 
Pai'turition having taken place, the uterus should be injected 
with a solution of chloride of lime, in the proportion of a 
drachm to a pint of water, and repeated twice a day whilst 
any fetid discharge from the vagina remains. * * * 

"Post 3fortem A}^pearances. — On opening the body of an 
ewe in which parturient fever has existed, and has been the 
cause of death, a great variety of appearances are presented. 
In some cases a degree of redness, varying from clear 
vermillion to a reddish brown, is variously disposed over the 
coats of the intestines and lining membrane of the abdomen 
(peritoneum) and the cavity of the abdomen, invariably 
containing a great quantity of reddish serum (red- water.) 
The liver mottled, its structure soft, and the bile appearing 
dark and viscid. The cavity of the womb containing much 
dark colored putrid matter, emitting a most horrible stench, 
its structure soft and almost black. The blood in the heart 
and large blood vessels frequently found black, would not 
coagulate, and destitute of tenacity. The lungs frequently 
found gorged with a reddish serosity [fluid] and of a deeply 
red or brown color, and as soft as pulp, the cavity of the 
chest containing much red serum. Dark colored spots 
variously disposed over the surface of the brain, and within 
the sheath of the spinal marrow. 

"Prevention. — The most important feature connected 
with our subject is the prevention of the disease, for it most 
interests the breeder in a pecuniary point of view. I would 



334 TARTURIENT FEVER. 

recommend as most important during the last five or six 
weeks' gestation, regular and nutritious feeding, regular 
exercise, dry and extensive folding. If turnips be the article 
of food, let there be given in addition a few oats, linseed 
cake, with hay and straw chaff; let a well sheltered and dry 
fold be arranged at a short distance from where the ewes are 
fed during the day, wherein to lodge for the night ; the 
driving to and from these folds will give exercise — a circum- 
stance tending much to promote health in the pregnant ewe;* 
if the system of heath or pasture feeding is practiced, night 
folding is then equally necessary. The night fold in common 
use — that formed by building straAv and stubble walls, with 
sheds attached, the front of which has a southern aspect — 
answers admirably. Further explaining the comforts of the 
pregnant ewe, I will add in the words of the poet, 

" First with assiduous care from winter keep, 
Well foddered in the stalls, thy tender sheep: 
Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold. 
With fern beneath, to 'fend the bitter cold." 

These statements scarcely need addition ; but as there is 
a strong probability that this formidable malady will become 
more common in the United States as the high bred English 
sheep, and English systems of keeping are introduced, I will 
append to it the following letter addressed to me bv Mr. 
Thome : 

" Thorndale, Washington Hollow, N. T., April 13, 1863. 

Dear Sir : — * * The puerperal fever has been known 
in this neighborhood since I first came here, though only to a 
limited extent during the last two seasons. f * * * The 
disease more generally affects middle aged ewes, and ewes 
producing or carrying twins. It does not select those lowest 
in flesh ; hence the farmers, as a class, are unwilling to 
believe that feed can remedy it. It generally shows itself 
from four or five to ten days before lambing. The symptoms 
you will find fully described in Seaman's Essay, in Vol. XV, 
of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. The 
treatment which my shepherd has followed, and with good 
success — saving sixteen out of twenty, sick in 1859 — has 
been to separate the sick ewe at once from the flock and give 
a dose of 2 ozs. Epsom salts, 2 to 3 ozs. molasses, 1 drachm 
of nitre, mixed with a pint of warm linseed gruel. The 



* I placed these words in italics,— and also the words " regular exercise " above. 

t Mr. Thome's statements of his losses, which here follow, have already been 
mentioned at page 59. 



PARTURIENT FEVER. 335 

object is to open the bowels, and should the above not operate 
in eight or ten hours, it should be repeated. After that, the 
nitre and molasses are given night and morning in an 
ordinary quart bottle of gruel until there is an abatement of 
the fever, when the nitre is discontinued. Frequently, in fact 
generally, after they have been down three or four days — if 
they live so long — the brown discharge which has been 
noticed passing from the vagina becomes putrid, showing 
that the foetus is dead. In such cases a small quantity of 
belladona — applied dry on the end of the finger — is applied 
to the mouth of the womb every hour until it is sufficiently 
relaxed to allow of the removal of the decaying mass. After 
that has been done, the womb is thoroughly syringed with 
warm water, to which milk is sometimes added. The ewes' 
position is made as comfortable as possible, and always 
changed once or twice a day. Where the ewe brings forth 
her young alive she recovers more rapidly. The remedies 
and treatment, as you will see, are perfectly simple and 
easily tried by any flock owner. The great secret of success 
with it, as with a large majority of diseases, I believe is good 
nursing. * * * Since my flock have received a small 
quantity of grain, say half a pint per head daily, before 
lambing,* they have been quite free from any signs of that 
trouble. As an illustration that a small quantity of feed is a 
preventive, a flock belonging to one of my friends was 
divided, upon going into winter quarters, into two lots, — one 
of sixty old ewes, the other of thirty two-year-olds. The 
former received a very small quantity of corn daily — the 
latter only hay. His losses from the former lot was two — 
from the latter fourteen head; though the younger ones 
generally escaped. * * * 

Yours faithfully, Sah'l, Thorne." 

While an over -fleshy, plethoric condition is obviously 
improper for breeding ewes, there is not a particle of doubt 
that both Mr. Seaman and Mr. Thorne are correct in the 
position — not only as respects the attack of parturient fever, 
but all other maladies and difficulties connected with parturi- 
tion — that ewes should not be suffered to fall off seriously in 
flesh during the period of gestation. Even if the ewe enters 
that period in too high condition, it is safer to keep her there 
than it is to reduce her. It would be better, if Ave could have 



* In a subsequent letter Mr. Thorne says :—" I commence with a small quantity 
of grain eight weeks before lambing, which is soon increased to half a pint each." 



330 PARTURIENT FEVER. 

things exactly according to our wishes, to have the ewe enter 
the term of gestation in moderate order, and then gain a little 

— almost imperceptibly — to the time of lambing. But let 
me not be mistaken. This is no time to fatten or to stimulate 

— no time to over-feed, as many do, on the wholly unfounded 
hypothesis that it is necessary for the support of the foetus. 
On this last point let me corroborate my opinions by much 
more authoritative ones. The well known Dr. Dewees, 
speaking of pregnant human females, says : 

" Errors in diet are almost constantly committed during 
pregnancy, than which few things are more mischievous. 
We have already adverted to the tending of the system to 
plethora, during this condition of the female : on this account 
it can not fail to be injurious to overcharge, or to overstimu- 
late the stomach. No one circumstance has contributed so 
certainly to fix this error, as the vulgar speculation on this 
subject ; namely, the necessity the female is under to prepare 
nourishment for two beings, at one and the same time; that 
is, for herself and the child within her. It is, therefore, 
constantly recommended, to eat and drink heartily ; and this 
she often does, until the system is goaded to fever; and some- 
times to more sudden and greater evils, as convulsions or 
apoplexy." * 

Mr. Youatt says : — " It has been supposed by some breed- 
ers that, because the ewe is with lamb, an additional quantity 
of food, of more nutritive food, should be allowed; nothing 
can be more erroneous or dangerous both to the mother and 
the offspring. There will be too many causes of inflammation 
ready to act, and to act powerfully, during the time of going 
with lamb, to prevent the least approach to excess of food." f 

According to eminent British medical writers, like Dr. 
Hey, Dr. Gordon, Dr. Joseph Clarke, Dr. John Clarke, etc., 
puerperal fever in the human subject often assumes an 
epidemic and highly destructive character in Europe, and 
particularly in England. According to Dr. Dewees, it is 
very rare in the United States.J 

The history of the disease thus far seems to run parallel 
between human and ovine subjects, in this country and 
Europe. It would seem that it assumed an epizootic, or 
rather enzootic character in Mr. Thome's neighborhood. 

* Treatise on the Diseases of Females, by William P. Dewees, M. D., late Profes- 
sor of Midwifery in the University of Pennsylvania, &c., &c., 1840. 

t Youatt on Sheep, p. 497. lie repeats these views again and again. 
X Dewees on the Diseases of Females, p. 3S0. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE BLADDER. 33V 

Those desirous of reading a more elaboi'ate paper on 
this subject than that of Mr. Seaman, the important parts 
of which I have quoted, will find it in a "Prize Report" by 
Mr. W. C. Sibbald, in XII Volume of the Journal of the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1851, (page 554.) 

Cystitis, or Inflammation of the Bladder. — Mr. 
Spooner says : — " Inflammation of the bladder is a rather 
rare disease with sheep, and is chiefly confined to such as are 
kept on artificial food, such as oil-cake, beans, &c, though 
clover that has been mown, it is said, will produce it. There 
are more losses from this cause than farmers are aware, it 
being generally this disease when a sheep is said to drop with 
water. It is mostly confined to the male sex, and principally 
to rams, and such as are highly fed. The state of the bladder 
appears to be that of fullness, which shows its neck is involved 
in inflammation, and thus becomes contracted and loses the 
cavity. In horses, cystitis is generally attended with constant 
staling, the bladder being so irritable as scarcely to retain a 
drop of urine. In sheep there is the same predisposition to 
stale, but an incapability of performing the act." Mr. 
Dickens abstracted three pints of blood from the neck of a 
"highly fed tup," laboring under this disease, which produced 
fiinting. "He soon rallied, and an oleagenous draught, 
accompanied by an opiate, was given twice during the day. 
Toward night he appeared much better, ate a little, and was 
seen to void some very highly colored urine. His medicine 
acted well during the night, but on the next day his straining 
came on at times. He again bled him from the other side of 
his neck to the amount of two pints. From this time he 
continued mending." 
15 



CHAPTER XXVH. 

DISEASES OF THE SKIN. 

THE SCAB — ERYSIPELATOUS SCAB WILD FIRE AND IGNIS 

SACER — OTHER CUTANEOUS ERUPTIONS SMALL POX, OR 

VARIOLA OVINA. 

The Scab. — The scab is a cutaneous disease, analogous 
to the mange in horses and the itch in men. It is caused and 
propagated by a minute insect, the acarus. M. Walz, a 
German veterinarian, who has thrown great light on the 
habits of these parasites, says : 

" If one or more female acari are placed on the wool of a 
sound sheep, they quickly travel to the root of it, and bury 
themselves in the skin, the place at which they penetrated 
being scarcely visible, or only distinguished by a minute red 
point. On the tenth or twelfth day a little swelling may be 
detected with the finger, and the skin changes its color, and 
has a greenish blue tint. The pustule is now rapidly formed, 
and about the sixteenth day breaks, and the mothers again 
appear, with their little ones attached to their feet, and 
covered by a portion of the shell of the egg from which they 
have just escaped. These little ones immediately set to work 
and penetrate the neighboring skin, and bury themselves 
beneath it, and find their proper nourishment, and grow and 
propagate, until the poor animal has myriads of them to prey 
on him, and it is not wonderful that he should speedily sink. 
Some of the male acari were placed on the sound skin of a 
sheep, and they, too, burrowed their way and disappeared for 
awhile, and the pustule in due time arose, but the itching 
and the scab soon disappeared without the employment of 
any remedy." 

The figures on the next page are copied from M. Walz'a 
work. 

The female acarus brings forth from eight to fifteen young 
at a litter. 



THE SCAB. 



339 




THE ACABUS WHICH CAUSES SCAB. 

The central figure represents the acari of their natural size on a white ground. 
The left hand figure represents the male on its back, magnified to 366 times the 
natural size. The right figure represents the female seen by the same magnifying 
power. The heads or suckers of both point upward, between the inner pair of legs. 
The legs have trumpet-like appendices. Hairs are seen on them to which the young 
ones adhere when they first escape from the pustule. 

The scab is thought often to be produced spontaneously, in 
England, by mismanagement of various kinds, such as " bad 
keep, starvation, hasty driving, dogging, and exposure after- 
ward to cold and wet ;" and it spreads rapidly by contagion. 
It is very prevalent there, and annually causes an immense 
loss in the wool and flesh of the British flocks. In the United 
States it is comparatively little known, and so far as I am 
able to learn, never originates spontaneously. It is a singular 
fact that short- wooled sheep, like the Merino, are much less 
subject to its attacks, and this is probably one reason for its 
little comparative prevalence in the United States. Mr. 
Youatt observes : 

"The old and unhealthy sheep are first attacked, and 
long -wooled sheep in preference to the short; a healthy, 
short -wooled sheep will long bid defiance to the contagion, 
or probably escape it altogether." 

It spreads from individual to individual, and from flock to 
flock, not only by means of direct contact, but by the acari 
left on posts, stones, and other substances against which 
diseased sheep have rubbed themselves. Healthy sheep are 
therefore liable to contract the malady if turned on pastures 
previously occupied by scabby sheep, though some considera- 
ble time may have elapsed since the departure of the latter. 



340 THE SCAB. 

The sheep laboring under the scab is exceedingly restless. 
It rubs itself with violence against trees, stones, fences, &c. 
It scratches itself with its feet, and bites its sores and tears 
off its wool with its teeth. As the pustules are broken, their 
matter .escapes, and forms scabs covering red, inflamed sores. 
The sores constantly extend, increasing the misery of the 
tortured animal. If unrelieved, it pines away and soon 
perishes. 

I have never had an opportunity to observe the post- 
mortem appearances. Mr. Youatt says : 

"The post-mortem appearances are very uncertain and 
inconclusive. There is generally chronic inflammation of the 
intestines, with the presence of a great number of worms. 
The liver is occasionally schirrous, and the spleen enlarged; 
and there are frequently serous effusions in the belly, and 
sometimes in the chest. There has been evident sympathy 
between the digestive and the cutaneous sj stems." 

Twenty-seven years since, I purchased one hundred and fifty 
fine-wooled sheep just driven into the county from a consider- 
able distance. I placed them on a farm then owned by me, 
in another town, and did not see them for about three weeks. 
One of my men then reported to me that the sheep were amiss 
— that they were shedding off their wool — that sore spots 
were beginning to show on them — and that they rubbed them- 
selves against the fence-corners, &c. Though I had never 
seen the scab, I took it for granted that this was the disease. 
No time was to be lost, as I had seven hundred other sheep 
on the farm — though fortunately, thus far, the new comers 
had been kept entirely separate from them. Barely looking 
into Mr. Livingston's work for a remedy, I provided myself 
with an ample supply of tobacco and set out. The sheep had 
been shorn, and their backs were covered with scabs ami 
sores. They evidently had the scab. I had a large potash 
kettle sunk partly in the ground as an extempore vat, and an 
unweighed quantity of tobacco put to boiling in several other 
kettles. The only eare was to have enough of the decoction, 
as it was rapidly wasted, and to have it strong enough. A 
little spirits of turpentine was occasionally thrown on the 
decoction, say to every third or fourth sheep dipped. It was 
necessary to use it sparingly, as, not mixing with the fluid 
and floating on the surface, too much of it otherwise came in 
contact with the sheep. Not attending to this at first, two 
or three of the sheep were thrown into great agony, and 
appeared to be on the point of dying. I had each sheep 



THE SCAB. 341 

caught and its scabs scoured off, by two men who rubbed 
them with stiff shoe-brushes, dipped in a suds of tobacco- 
water and soft soap. The two men then dipped the sheep all 
over in the large kettle of tobacco-water, rubbing and knead- 
ing the sore spots with their hands while immersed in the 
fluid. The decoction was so strong that many of the sheep 
appeared to be sickened either by immersion or by its fumes ; 
and one of the men who dipped, though a tobacco-chewer, 
vomited, and became so sick that his place had to be supplied 
by another. 

The effect on the sheep Avas almost magical. The sores 
rapidly healed, the sheep gamed in condition, the new wool 
immediately started, and I never had a more perfectly healthy 
flock on my farm. Though administered with little reference 
to economy, the remedy was a decisive one. With a vat like 
figure on page 187, this would not necessarily be a very 
expensive method, with sheep recently sheared. But the 
assaults of the scab usually come on in the spring before 
shearing time, and it would require an immense quantity of 
tobacco decoction to dip sheep with their fleeces on, however 
carefully it might be pressed out. 

The following is the remedy recommended by Chancellor 
Livingston : — " First, I separate the sheep (for it is very 
infectious ;) I then cut off the wool as far as the skin feels 
hard to the finger ; the scab is then washed with soap-suds, 
and rubbed hard with a shoe-brush, so as to cleanse and break 
the scab. I always keep for this use a decoction of tobacco, 
to which I add one-third by measure of the lye of wood ashes, 
as much hog's lard as will be dissolved by the lye, a small 
quantity of tar from the tar-bucket, which contains grease, 
and about one-eighth of the whole by measure of spirits of 
turpentine. This liquor is rubbed upon the part infected, and 
spread to a little distance round ^t, in three washings, with an 
interval of three days each. I have never failed in this way 
to effect a cure when the disorder was only partial. * * * 
I can not say whether it would cure a sheep infected so as to 
lose half its fleece." * 

The following remedies are much used in Great Britain : 

No. 1. — Dip the sheep in an infusion of arsenic, in the 
proportion of half a pound of arsenic to twelve gallons of 
water. The sheep should previously be washed in soap and 
water. The infusion must not be permitted to enter the 
mouth or nostrils. 



* Livingston's Essay. Appendix, p. 177. 



342 THE SCAB. 

No. 2. — Take common mercurial ointment, for bad cases, 
rub it down with three times its weight of lard — for ordinary 
cases, five times its weight of lard. Rub a little of this oint- 
ment into the head of the sheep. Part the wool so as to 
expose the skin in a line from the heSd to the tail, and then 
apply a little of the ointment with the finger the whole way. 
Make a similar furrow and application, on each side, four 
inches from the first, and so on over the whole body. The 
quantity of ointment (after being compounded with the lard) 
shmdd not exceed two ounces ; and considerably loss will 
generally suffice. A lamb requires but one-third as much as 
a grown sheep. This will generally cure, but if the sheep 
should continue to rub itself, a lighter application of the same 
should be made in ten days. 

No. 3. — Take of lard or palm oil 2 lbs., oil of tar £ lb., 
sulphur 1 lb. Gradually mix the last two, then rub down the 
compound with the first. Apply in the same way as No. 2. 

No. 4. — Take of corrosive sublimate •£ lb., white hellebore, 
powered, f lb., whale or other oil 6 gallons, rosin 2 lbs., 
tallow 2 lbs. " The first two to be mixed with a little of the 
oil, and the rest being melted together, the whole to be 
gradually mixed." This is a powerful preparation and must 
not be applied too freely. 

Mr. Spooner gives the preference to No. 1, as least 
troublesome ; Mr. Youatt to No. 2 ; and the author of the 
Mountain Shepherd's Manual to No. 4. I should certainly 
prefer No. 3, if it is, as it is asserted to be, equally effectual, 
for the reason that it contains no poisonous or dangerous 
ingredients. But its perfect efficacy may be doubted. 

Mr. Robert Smith, in his Prize Essay, several times cited, 
declares that scab "is never observed or known to arise 
spontaneously in a flock," in England. It is clearly and 
concededly not spontaneous in the United States. Mr. Smith 
adds: — "When first discovered, the whole flock should be 
carefully inspected and the diseased subjects removed to a 
separate field ; it is best to give the whole flock a light 
dressing, as a preventive ; no fear need to be entertained of 
dressing the inlambed ewes, as I have had occasion to 
practice it at different periods and have experienced no ill. 
effects, observing not to dress the belly or points. The 
mercurial ointment in common use, prepared by all druggists, 
is found to be sufficiently good,* without resorting to other 

* Mr. Smith undoubtedly means mercurial ointment prepared by druggists for 
(his especial object — not mercurial ointment having the full strength of that prepared 
according to the London and New York pharmacopoeia, which are the same, viz., 



THE SCAB. 343 

recipes ; when ordered the party should take care to name that 
it is required for the specific purpose of curing the disease, 
that attention may be specially paid to the grinding of the 
quicksilver. In mild cases one dressing by an experienced 
shepherd, at the rate of 3 lbs. to the score for full-grown 
sheep, and 2-£ lbs. for younger ones, will prove sufficient,* 
plenty of shreds being the principal feature, and also observing 
to dress the points pretty freely; care should be taken to 
shut them up one or more nights, according to the case, and 
afterwards kept in a warmer situation, if possible, for a time, 
and given a good supply of food. In bad cases, it is proper 
to inspect them weekly, until the disease be entirely 
removed, and give opening medicines pretty freely. Should 
any die under the operation, the remainder shoidd be washed 
immediately ; if the disease do not then stop, they should be 
shorn, which is a certain remedy." 

Tobacco has always been the favorite American remedy, 
but at the present time would be very expensive. If every 
farmer would, in a bed of his garden, raise a sufficient 
quantity of tobacco plants for this purpose and for dipping 
his lambs, it would cost him but a trifle. 

Prof. Simonds, one of the most recent writers on the 
subject, recommends a liquid prepared as follows : 

" Take two ounces arsenic and two ounces carbonate of 
potash, and boil in a quart of water till dissolved, and then 
add water enough to make a gallon of the solution. To this 
add a gallon of vegetable infusion, made by pouring a gallon 
of water over four ounces of fox-glove leaves, (digitalis,) and 
allowing the infusion to remain till cold, when it is poured 
off. ' These two gallons of liquid,' he says, 'constitute a safe 
agent, and one of the most potent remedies for scab. Half a 
pint of it (from a bottle with a' quill in the cork,) on the skin 
at the back and sides of the sheep. Two or three dressings 
will be found sufficient to cure the most inveterate cases of 
scab in sheep.' The digitalis leaves can be obtained at any 
drug store." f 



compounded of mercury 2 lbs., lard 23 oz., suet 1 oz. There is a mild mercurial oint- 
ment, prepared in London and sold under that name, which is compounded of strong 
mercurial ointment 1 lb., lard 2 lbs. The proper reduction of the strong mercurial 
ointment of the shops is given in No. 2 of the remedies mentioned in text. 

* Mr. Smith writes of large English sheep. I should consider 1 oz. of the reduced 
ointment per head, quite enough for Merino sheep, and half that amount for lambs — 
in winter. 

t I think I cut this from the American Stock Journal — but accidentally failed to 
mark it with its proper credit at the time. 



344 OTIIER CUTANEOUS ERUPTIONS. 

Erysipelatous Scab. — This is described by Mr. 
Stevenson (quoted by Mr. Youatt) as consisting of an 
" inflammation of the skin that raises it into blisters contain- 
ing a thin, reddish and watery fluid. These continue for a 
short time, break and discharge their matter, and are followed 
by a blackish scab." Mr. Youatt says this disease is rare — 
that a little blood should be abstracted — and a purge of 
Epsom salts administered. External applications are not 
usually necessary, but if there are much burning and itching, 
sweet oil or camphorated oil will afford relief. I have never 
seen this disease. 

"Wild Fire and Ignis Sacer.— Mr. Youatt says: — "The 
wild fire, or more extensive vesication and torture, (than 
erysipelatous scab) and to a certain degree infectious, lias 
occasionally existed as an epidemic [epizootic] The Ignis 
sacer or violent cutaneous inflammation of the skin of 
the sheep, is occasionally mentioned in every history of 
the epidemics of sheep. As, however, a disease to be 
traced to any definite cause, and attacking solitary indi- 
viduals of the flock, and thence communicated, to others, it is 
unknown." I think these forms of cutaneous eruption are 
unknown in the United States. 

Other Cutaneous Eruptions. — I received numerous 
letters from Texas for a few months preceding the close of 
mail communication, by the present war, describing a 
cutaneous eruption of very general prevalence among the 
sheep of that State — and inquiring whether it was scab, and 
what was its proper remedy. The disease described by the 
different writers — twenty or thirty in all — appeared to be 
substantially the same. The sheep was uneasy and rubbed 
itself as if it itched more or less violently. Pustules did not 
appear on the skin, break and form sores as in scab ■ — but the 
cuticle was thickened, rough, and sometimes rather red as if 
covered with a rash. I think the sheep did not usually tear 
off much of their wool. It seems to have spread rapidly 
from flock to flock as if contagious or epizootic. 

I recommended dipping the sheep in tobacco-water strong 
enough to kill ticks. I had heard from several of these flocks 
before the mails were closed: and in every instance the 
remedy proved effectual. 

Some forms of cutaneous disease, differing essentially from 
scab, have appeared occasionally, though very rarely, among 



SMALL POX. 345 

sheep in New York, and, I think, in all the Northern States. 
Sometimes a flock in winter exhibit considerable itching about 
their under parts, and scratch them with their feet, pulling 
out the wool. This yields to an application of tobacco-water. 
I would suggest that sulphur ointment be tested as a remedy 
in these minor eruptive diseases. Number 3, among the scab 
remedies given above, would also seem to be a promising 
remedy for them. But if farmers will raise their own tobacco, 
it would probably leave nothing to desire, either on the score 
of efficacy or economy. Certain eruptions of the face, lips, 
&c, have been mentioned at pages 269, 271. 

Small Pox, or Variola Ovina. — When Messrs. Youatt 
and Spooner wrote their works on the sheep, this fearful 
malady had been long known on the Continent, but had never 
visited Great Britain. It however appeared in England, in 
1847 I think, and committed desolating ravages. It has not 
been introduced into the United States, but as no one knows 
how soon it may be — by the same means by which that 
malady might be introduced among human subjects — its 
history and treatment deserve special attention. 

La Clavelee, as it is termed in France, attacks sheep at 
all seasons of the year, and in all conditions — but lambs 
sooner than grown sheep. Half, and not unfrequently two- 
thirds of a flock used to perish by it. The sheep which 
recovers does not contract it the second time. It is communi- 
cated by contagion, and in every possible indirect way in 
which contagion is communicated among human beings, by 
substances which had been in contact with the subjects of 
the disease. A flock take it by being turned on a pasture 
which was occupied two or three months before by diseased 
animals — or by being driven over a road recently traveled 
by them. Mr. Youatt thus condenses and translates the 
statements of various French writers on the subject : 

" In the regular clavelee there were four distinct periods ; 
first, the symptoms which preceded the eruption, as dullness, 
loss of appetite and strength, and debility, marked by a 
peculiar staggering gait, the suspension of animation, and 
slight symptoms of fever. This continued during about four 
days, when commenced the second period, or that of eruption. 
Little spots of a violet color appeared in various parts, and 
from their center there sprung pustules accompanied by more 
or less inflammation, isolated or confluent, and with a white 
head ; their base was well marked and distinct, they were 
15* 



346 SMALL-POX. 

surrounded by a red areola and their center was flattened. 
Tlu'y were larger than an ordinary lentil. In some animals 
they were confined to a few spots, in others they spread over 
the whole body. They were scattered here and there, or 
disposed in the form of beads, or congregated together in a 
mass. 

" When the disease was not of an acute character, and the 
eruption was not considerable, and the febrile symptoms were 
mitigated as soon as the pustule was developed, there was 
not much to fear. The eruption ran through its several 
stages, and no serious disorganization remained ; but in too 
many cases the whole of the integument became reddened and 
inflamed, the flanks heaved, the pulse, whether strong or 
obscure, increased in frequency, the mouth was hot, the 
conjunctiva red, the breath fetid, the head swelled, the eye- 
lids almost closed ; rumination had ceased, the muscular 
power was exhausted, the pustules died away with little 
apparent fluid secretion, a fetid diarrhea ensued, and death 
speedily took place. 

" The progress of the eruptive stage of the disease was 
frequently, however, a very unsatisfactory one. When the 
pustule had risen, and the suppuration had commenced, a new 
state of febrile excitement ensued, accompanied by more than 
nsual debility. It lasted from three to four days, and during 
its continuance the pustules became whiter at their summit, 
and the fluid which they contained was of a serous character, 
yellow or red, transparent or viscid, and by degrees it 
thickened and became opaque, and then puriform ; and at this 
period, when danger was to be apprehended, a defluxion from 
the nose ensued, and swellings about the head as already 
described. 

" This was the contagious stage of the disease, and when 
it was too easily and fatally transmissible by accidental 
contact or by inoculation. 

" Then came the last stage, that of desiccation, and about 
the twelfth day from the commencement of the disease. The 
pustules subsided, or the integument gave way, and the fluid 
which they contained escaped, and a scab was formed of 
greater or less size and density, yellow or black, and which 
detached itself bodily, or crumbled away in minute particles 
or powder. The contagion was now at an end, and the 
animal recovered his appetite and spirits and strength. This 
stage of desquamation frequently lasted three weeks or a 
month. 



SMALL-rox. 347 

"A secondary eruption occasionally followed, of an erysip- 
elatous character. There were no distinct suppurating 
pustules ; but there was a more serous or watery secretion 
which soon died. 

" This was the regular and the fortunate course of the 
disease ; but too frequently there was a fatal irregularity 
about it. Almost at the commencement there Was excessive 
fever, and prostration of strength and fetid breath, and 
detachment of large patches of the wool, and more rapid and 
bounding or inappreciable pulse, and strange swellings about 
the throat and head, and difficult deglutition. There was also 
a discharge of adhesive, spumy fluid from the mouth, and of 
ichorous or thick, and yellow, or bloody, and fetid discharge 
from the nostrils, often completely occupying and obstructing 
them. The respiration became not only laborious, but every 
act of it could be heard at a considerable distance — there 
was a distressing cough — the lips, the nostrils, the eyelids, 
the head, and every limb became swelled, the pustules ran 
together, and formed large masses over the face, and the 
articulations : diarrhea, that bade defiance to every medicine 
ensued, and the end was not far off." 

The symptoms of the disease, after it appeared in England, 
are thus described by Mr. Thomas Wells, of Norwich, in the 
Norwich Mercury* : — " The leading symptoms of small pox 
are, a separation of the infected animal from the flock, a 
peculiar arching of the back, a drooping of the ears, a closing 
of the eyelids, amounting in some cases almost to blindness, 
and a pustular eruption, extending more or less over all parts 
of the body, but particularly those destitute of wool or 
covered with hair only; such for instance, as the cheeks, 
the skin inside the arms and thighs, the under surface of 
the tail, udder, etc." 

The treatment of the malady, given by Messrs. Youatt 
and Spooner, (taken doubtless from Continental works on the 
subject,) is to separate out the diseased sheep from the flock, 
give them good food, protect them from wet and cold, open 
their bowels with Epsom salts during the febrile state, and 
afterward administer small doses of the salts with mild 
tonics, such as ginger and gentian. " Common salt was a 
favorite and very useful medicine, on account of its anti- 
septic and tonic properties." 

The disease raged in Flanders, and I give the treatment 

* I find it republished in the London Farmer's Magazine. 



348 SMALL-POX. 

adopted in that country as more full, in some important 
particulars, than the preceding, and as describing, in detail, 
some of the minor manipulations and precautions necessary in 
treating the malady. In this light, it is a useful addition to 
the preceding prescriptions. If not adopted fully in this 
country — should the unfortunate occasion arise for our 
combating this malady — it at least furnishes useful hints. 
Professor A. Numann, of the Veterinary College of Utrecht, 
in his work on the diseases of animals, writes as follows : 

"When the sheep eat freely and appear playful, while 
the pox comes out regularly, breaks, and dries up, no medicine 
is requisite ; but should they lose their appetite, show an 
inclination to lie down, the heart beating quick and strong, 
and .the pox not make its appearance on the third day, then 
nature requires assistance to drive the diseases outward ; to 
this effect the following remedy is necessary: 

"Take 2 oz. of juniper berries pulverized; a root of parsely 
cut, and split peas reduced to a powder, two handfuls each : 
boil all this in 4 lbs. of water ; clear it off", mix in it £ oz. 
camphor, which has been previously dissolved in the yolk of 
an egg, and 1 oz. of good wine vinegar : this mixture to be 
divided in eight parts, one part to be administered night and 
morning till the pox is forced out. To obtain this point the 
following remedy will also be found efficacious : — Take flour 
of brimstone f oz., the juniper berries, to be pulverized, the 
camphor mixed with the yolk of an egg, and the Avhole mixed 
with 4 oz. honey : to be divided in eight parts, one part to be 
given at night and morning. 

" The stable in which the sheep are kept should be dry 
and airy, and not too wai - m ; they ought to have fine, sweet 
hay, with barley straw cut very fine, which may be mixed 
with wheat bran moistened, bruised barley or flour of rice ; a 
little salt to be mixed daily with it. When the pox is thrown 
out without containing any matter, the first given remedy is to 
be applied, and a seton to be set in the chest and each loin, 
which is to be effected in the following manner. Shear off 
the wool, to the size of a hand's breadth, from the part where 
you wish to place the seton ; cut two small holes, the one 
above the other, through the hide, at a distance of three 
fingers ; loosen the communication between one incision and 
the other by means of a flat stick ; then draw through the 
opening a piece of linen half a finger's breadth, of which that 
part that goes under the hide must be besmeared on both 
sides with butter ; the next day draw the band a little and 



SMALL-POX. 349 

besmear it afresh ; take care that the band be long enough to 
enable you to tie it, to prevent its slipping out. On the fifth 
or sixth day, when the pock is charged with matter, the linen 
or band may be drawn, and the above remedy dispensed with. 

" When the blood is not freed from pock matter, it often 
produces (when the pox is already cured) a swelling in one or 
other part of the body ; as soon as such swelling is come to 
maturity, it ought to be opened, and the matter washed away 
quickly. If the eyes should be closed with a swelling, they 
must be often bathed with water, and when opened the matter 
carefully washed away. The following remedies may be 
applied in cases of malignant small pox. The pustules seldom 
burst without assistance, but the matter they contain spread- 
ing continually, they ought to be opened with a sharp-pointed 
knife as soon as they are in a state of maturity ; and after 
squeezing out the matter, to be washed with a solution of salt 
and water until a cure is performed. 

" As the small pox is very contagious, it is necessary to 
guard against it as much as possible, and when discovered 
to separate the sheep affected from the rest of the flock, and 
place them in another stable, which ought to be fumigated 
with juniper berries twice a day at least; the manure taken 
out, and fresh straw put in daily; besides, the stable must 
(after the complaint has subsided) be scoured with a solution 
of wood ashes, and then fumigated with chlorine, before it is 
made use of to receive sound sheep. 

" In summer, sheep affected with the small pox may be 
driven in fine weather for a few hours, morning and evening, 
in the field, but care must be taken they do not go near the 
sound ones ; the latter must not go into the field where the 
former have grazed: in general, all communication, of what- 
ever nature it may be, between the sick and sound sheep must 
be avoided, and the shepherd who conducts and has care of 
the sick sheep should take care not to approach the sound 
sheep, lest he should communicate the contagion." 

In 1760, healthy sheep were inoculated with the virus of 
the diseased ones, and the effects were found analogous to 
those of inoculation for small pox among human subjects. A 
disease having the same character was produced, but it was 
mild and rarely mortal. In a paper in the London Farmer's 
Magazine, September, 1848, Mr. O. Delafond states that to 
sum up the recorded cases of inoculations made in France, 
by Huard, Valois, Langlois, Guillaume, Buignot, D'Arboval, 
Gragnier, Girard, etc., between 1805 and 1848, the number of 



350 SMALL -POX. 

subjects which recovered was 28,248, and the number which 
died was 285 — or about one per cent. M. Gayot inoculated 
10,000 in the departments of La Marne and La Haute Marne 
during the prevalence of the disease, when the mortality was 
( wenty per cent, among those having it in the natural way ; 
and he lost only one and one half per cent, of his patients. 
Messrs. Miquel and Thomieres inoculated between December, 
1820, and January, 1822, 17,044 sheep, comprising eighty-four 
flocks, and forty-two of them infected ones. In some of the 
flocks not previously infected they did not lose a patient. In 
one, in which two-thirds of the sheep were already attacked 
by the disease, they lost about eight per cent, of the remaining 
number, many of which were doubtless in the incubatory 
state of the disease when inocidated. Out of 66,716 inocu- 
lated in Prussia, 65,042 recovered. Out of 8,000 sheep and 
2,000 lambs inoculated in Austria, not one was lost. These 
examples might be indefinitely multiplied. 

D'Arboval states that 7,697 sheep which had received the 
disease by inoculation and recovered, had been re-inoculated, 
made to cohabit with sheep laboring under the natural 
disease, &c, &c, and that in no instance did they again 
contract the malady. 

Mr. Youatt declares that variola ovina is not identical 
with small-pox in the human being. He says there is an 
evident difference in the pustule — that of small-pox being 
" developed in the texture of the skin, and surrounded by a 
rose-colored areola, that of the clavellee evidently more deep- 
seated — reaching to the sub-cutaneous cellular tissue and 
surrounded by an areola of a far deeper color. The virus of 
small-pox Avas usually contained in a simple capsule which 
elevated the scarf skin — the virus of the sheep-pox seemed 
to be more diffused through the cutaneous and sub-cutaneous 
tissue, and there was abundantly more swelling and inflamma- 
tion." He describes other differences in the appearance of 
the matter, scabs, &c* 

Vaccination followed the introduction of inoculation. To 
test their respective usefulness, 1,523 sheep were vaccinated 
in France, and the disease became fully developed in them. 
They were all subsequently inoculated with the virus of sheep- 
pox, and 308 took the disease, though in the mitigated form 
usual after inoculation. Other smaller experiments had a 
corresponding result ; and, therefore, says Mr. Youatt — at 

* I suppose that Mr. Youatt in expressing these opinions, expresses the opinions 
of the learned veterinarians of the Continent. 



SMALL -POX. 351 

the period of writing his work on the sheep — "vaccine 
inoculation is now abandoned on the Continent, although it 
gives immunity to four-fifths of those that have been subjected 
to it, for inoculation with le claveau, or the virus of sheep- 
pox, will give immunity to all." 

When this malady made its advent in England, it was by 
imported sheep — and the weight of testimony would seem to 
show that the disease was not apparent in them at the time, 
but was in its incubatory state. There can be no doubt that 
the period of incubation is long enough to allow infected 
sheep to be brought from Europe to America, in the swift- 
sailing steamers of the present day, before the disease would 
produce any appearances which those not practically familiar 
with sheep-pox would recognize as characteristic of the 
malady ; * and the malady might progress much further 
without its nature being understood or suspected, in any 
region where it had not been previously known, and where 
its advent was totally unlooked for. And there is just as 
little doubt that it might be brought here at any time by 
wool, or pelts of diseased sheep, or any other substances 
infected by them, and under some disastrous combination of 
circumstances introduced, like fire to a train of powder, among 
the flocks of the American Continent. In England the flocks 
exposed to its ravages were larger than those of our Eastern 
States, and much nearer together than those in any part of 
our country — circumstances favorable to its more rapid 
propagation there : but there it was encountered with profes- 
sional veterinary skill — cheap labor for attendance — and the 
determined efforts of a government and people which had 
vast interests at stake, and but a comparatively small home 
territory to watch over. Here, unless mitigated by climatic 
circumstances — a thing not to be anticipated from any 
analogy derivable from our experience with small-pox in human 
beings — it would advance more slowly, perhaps, but I 
apprehend with more destructive results. Our breeders, and 
the very intelligent and public-spirited breeders of Canada, 
who are constantly introducing sheep from Europe, are called 
upon, then, by every consideration of interest and propriety, 



* Prof. J. B. Simonds' Lecturer on Cattle Medicine, etc., at the Royal Veternary 
College, England, and who was appointed government inspector of diseased sheep, 
when the sheep-pox appeared in England, states that it is about ten days from the 
time of the contact of a sound animal with a diseased one before the first symptoms 
appear. This is to be understood, doubtless, as the average period of incubation, 
and it might under various circumstances, or in different sheep, be extended several 
days longer. 



352 SMALL-POX. 

to exercise a constant and watchful care on this subject — not 
only where sheep-pox is raging and is the subject of public 
attention in the foreign countries where they purchase sheep, 
but at all times, if it is known that the malady has ever visited 
those countries. The man who even carelessly brought this 
scourge to our shores, would deserve and receive the reproba- 
tion of a Continent. 

I am not aware that any important discoveries have been 
made in the actual treatment of the disease in England ; and 
owing to my failure to obtain certain expected English 
publications on the subject, before the completion of this 
volume, I cannot give any particular history of the disease in 
that country obtained from authoritative sources. The 
general tenor of my information on the subject is, that the 
Variola Ovina, in its natural form, is as destructive and 
contagious there as on the Continent ; that the means relied 
on to counteract it are principally preventive ; that the main 
modes of preventing it are by inoculation and vaccination. 
It seems that there are those who prefer the latter mode. I 
saw it stated in an article in the American Agriculturist, that 
an association of sheep breeders in Wiltshire, England, on 
trial, much preferred vaccination. * 

The disease, after a lull of a few years, has recently, it 
would seem, re-appeared in England. I cut the following 
paragraphs on the subject from " Moore's Rural New- 
Yorker:" 

" From Bell's Messenger we learn that the •medicines 
employed in Mr. Parry's Hock, where the disease was first 
apparent, are very simple, consisting chiefly of nitrate of 
potassa, mingled with the water which is placed in the 
troughs, until a subsidence of the fever takes place, after 
which sulphate of iron has been substituted. Where diarrhea 
has come on — as it not unfrequently does in the latter stage 
of the malady, more particularly if the pox becomes conflu- 
ent — opium is recommended as a valuable agent to arrest the 
attack, which, if not quickly stopped, very soon carries off the 
sheep. 

" Speaking of inoculation, the Messenger remarks: — 

* It was stilted in this article that the inoculated sheep "died off rapidly, and 
thus the proposed prevention only spread the infection." If this is a correct statement 
Of the facts, it only shows, I imagine, that the flocks of Wiltshire were inoculated 
with improper virus, or that they were affected by exceptional and inauspicious cir- 
cumstances. The alleged result is too much opposed to the well settled facts which 
attend inoculation, developed under upwards of a century and a half of observa- 
tion— and to the combined experience of the Continental veterinarians — to be enti- 
tled to credit. 



SMALL-POX. 353 

'Nearly three weeks have now elapsed since Mr. Parry's 
flock were inoculated ; and it is worthy of remark that out of 
446 ewes in which the disease was thus artificially, as it were, 
produced, he has lost only four; while of those which took the 
disease naturally, the losses have already been sixty per cetit., 
and there are numbers of other sheep of whose recovery there 
is little hope, — indeed, the total loss of those which have taken 
the disease in a natural way, Mr. Parry estimates will not be 
much short of 65 per cent. Putting this, therefore, in contrast 
with the results after inoculation — which, under the most 
favorable circumstances, are not expected to average a mor- 
tality of more than five per cent. — the desirableness of 
inoculation immediately upon the appearance of the disease 
in a flock is placed beyond doubt.'" 



CHAPTER XX VIII. 
DISEASES OP THE LOOOMOTIVE OKGANS. 

FRACTURES — RHEUMATISM — DISEASE OF THE BIFLEX CANAL 

GRAVEL TRAVEL-SORE — LAMENESS FROM FROZEN MUD 

FOULS HOOF-ROT. 

Fractures. — The most common fractures which occur in 
the brittle bones of the sheep are in the legs below the knees 
and hocks ; and there is no difficulty in treating such cases. 
Any intelligent man is a sufficient surgeon for the occasion. 
The bones should be brought to their natural position and 
confined there with splints — or thin pieces of wood shaped 
to the leg and wound with strips of muslin, which confine a 
layer of cotton batting on the side next the leg. The splints 
are confined to the leg by winding twine around the whole 
when they are arranged in their places. I never had occasion 
to ease the limb on account of its swelling — or to administer 
purgatives in consequence of any ensuing fever in the sheep ; 
though both might be called for. The limb is usually sound 
enough to remove the splints in the course of three or four 
weeks — though there is no occasion for haste in this particu- 
lar. In default of other convenient materials, I have applied 
the bare splints over a wrapping of thick paper with cotton 
or wool laid evenly under it. Thick leather, shaped to the 
leg when wet, will support it without splints. If the fracture 
is of the arm or thigh and far above the knee or hock, it is 
not generally worth while to attempt any cure. Mr. Youatt 
says if the shoulder is fractured it can generally be success- 
fully treated by removing the wool and applying a pitch 
plaster on the whole of the shoulder bone. 

Rheumatism. — This has been sufficiently mentioned at 
page 155. 

Disease of the Biflex Canal. — We have owners of 
sheep who believe with Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, who flour- 
ished almost three centuries and a half ago, that, " There be 



GRAVEL — TRAVEL -SORE. 355 

Bome shepe that hath a worme in his foote that maketh hym 
halte." The biflex canal, or "issue" as it is sometimes called, 
(in the front and upper part of the cleft between the toes,) 
gets some substance introduced into it which causes an irrita- 
tion and swelling of the surrounding parts ; and to cure this, 
believers in the "worme" actually, with a pocket knife, 
dissect out — or rather mangle out — the skin which surrounds 
the biflex canal! Such egregious ignorance and brutality, 
however, are now extremely rare. Two or three incisions in 
the swollen parts usually relieve them of the inflammation. 
The biflex canal and the other parts of the foot should be 
examined, of course, to see that no irritating foreign substances 
have become imbedded in them. 

Gravel. — Gravel or dirt occasionally penetrates the 
foot of the sheep between its horny covering and the fleshy 
structures underneath. It ultimately produces an inflamma- 
tion and swelling at the coronet, which at length breaks and 
expels the offending substances. As this process produces 
considerable pain and inconvenience to the animal, it is better, 
as soon as the lameness is observed, to remove enough of the 
horny covering of the foot to allow the escape of the gravel. 
It is well enough, then, to cover the parts with tar; but 
whether this is done or not, no injury will result from the 
removal of the necessary portion of the horn ; and it will be 
very rapidly reproduced. 

Travel -Sore. — Sheep driven several hundred miles 
through mud and sand — say from Western Illinois to the 
banks of the Hudson — not only frequently become graveled, 
but the heels are sometimes worn so thin, and they and the 
skin between them become -so tender, that the sheep proceed 
on their journey with pain, and fall off a good deal more than 
they otherwise would, in condition. The English sheep is 
much more subject to this than the Merino, both on account of 
its greater weight, and because the horny coverings of its feet 
are much thinner. The drover carries a phial of oil of vitriol 
in his pocket. The bottom of the heels are touched by a feather 
dipped in this, when the drove stops at night — and a little 
tar from the inn -keeper's bucket is smeared on the cauterized 
parts, on the backs of the heejs, and between the toes. This 
gives great relief under any circumstances : and the sheep 
rapidly recovers if allowed a little rest. Butyr of antimony, 
acting much more as a purely superficial caustic, would be a 
better application than oil of vitriol. 



356 FOULS — HOOF -EOT. 

Lamkxess from Frozen Mud. — I have elsewhere men- 
tioned that when sheep are kept in unlittered yards in winter, 
and especially when they are allowed to run over plowed 
ground, little pellets of mud often adhere to the hairs which 
hang down in the clefts of the feet, and a sudden and severe 
freeze converts these into pellets of the consistency of stone. 
Nay, the kneading operation of the toes on this lump of earth 
frequently gives it such consistency that, on becoming dry 
merely, it acts as a highly irritating body in the foot. I have 
seen half the sheep of a flock made lame enough in this way 
to give a strong suspicion of hoof-rot. On looking into the 
feet, the skin on each side of the little mud ball is found 
chafed and inflamed — sometimes worn through and matter 
formed in the wounds. I saw a purchase of a valuable Hock 
of sheep broken off by this cause. The parties had agreed on 
the price, and both were anxious to complete the bargain. 
But there were a small number of lame sheep, and the 
purchaser demanded a guaranty against hoof- rot, which the 
seller refused to give, and consequently lost the sale of his 
sheep by his carelessness. £he remedy, or rather the pre- 
ventive, is too obvious to require mention. 

Fouls. — Sheep are much less subject to this disease than 
cattle, but contract it if kept in wet, filthy yards, or on moist, 
poachy pastures. A wet season and tall grass sometimes 
produce it, even on dry uplands. The skin in the cleft of the 
foot first has a macerated or water-soaked appearance, which 
is followed by a degree of inflammation and lameness. It 
disappears when the sheep is removed to a dry yard or 
pasture — but more promptly if the parts have a solution of 
blue vitriol or turpentine applied to them, or are daubed 
with tar. 

Hoof-Rot. — I mentioned in "Sheep Husbandry in the 
South," that the description of the early stages of this disease 
given in Mr. Youatt's justly popular work on Sheep, is almost 
wholly inapplicable to the malady in the United States, and 
among Merino sheep. I never have seen it among English 
sheep ; and, in this country, they, like all our other coarse- 
wooled varieties, are notoriously less subject to it than 
Merinos, and far more readily cured when they contract it. 
Some of the reasons for this fact may probably be found in 
the different structure of their hoofs mentioned at page 168. 
As Mr. Youatt's works are received — and, as a general thing, 



HOOF -EOT. 357 

justly received — as standard authority among the great mass 
of the reading farmers of our country, I feel called upon again 
to point out his errors on this subject. I may be allowed to 
speak with a degree of confidence in regard to a malady 
which has at fdur different periods attacked my flocks — 
embracing as many as five thousand sheep in its different 
visitations : and which has been, in every instance, fully and 
completely extirpated. 

The following is Mr. Youatt's description of its first 
symptoms : — " The foot will be found hot and tender, the 
horn softer than usual, and there will be enlargement about 
the coronet, and a slight separation of the hoof from it, with 
portions of the horn worn away, and ulcers formed below and 
a discharge of thin, fetid matter. The ulcers, if neglected, 
continue to increase ; they throw out fungous granulations, 
they separate the hoof more and more from the parts beneath 
until at length it drops off. All this is the consequence of 
soft and marshy pasture." Mr. Youatt attributes the disease 
not only to " infection by means of the virus," but to particles 
of earth or sand having forced their way through breaks in the 
hoof, and through "new pores," occasioned by the over-lapping 
portions of the horn breaking off. These particles "reaching 
the quick, an inflammation is set up, which, in its progress, alters 
or destroys the whole foot." He also attributes it to another 
cause. " The length to which the crust grows," he remarks, 
"changes completely the proper bearing of the foot, for, being 
extended forward, it takes the whole weight of the supexin- 
cumbent parts. By the continual pressure on this lengthened 
part inflammation cannot fail to be set up." In describing 
the progress of the disease, he mentions the following circum- 
stance : — " The whole of the inner surface of the pasterns is 
sore and raw." * * * "In some cases, as has appeared 
when the diseased state of this [the biflex] canal was exam- 
ined, the malady commences here." 

The hoof is not softened but rather hardened by the 
presence of hoof-rot, until its structure becomes to some 
extent disorganized. In not one case in a hundred is there 
any visible enlargement about the coronet in the early stages 
of the disease. The horn, so far from first separating from 
the coronet, generally adheres there to the last, even when 
the whole bottom of the hoof is gone, and nothing but a 
portion of its side shell remains. The hoof never " drops off," 
in the sense in which I here understand Mr. Youatt to mean 
— that is, entire; though it sometimes gradually becomes 



358 HOOP- EOT. 

totally disorganized and thus disappears. The disease never 
commences between the quick of the foot and its horny shell, 
as it would do if caused by sand or other substances having 
penetrated through the hoof to those parts. The improper 
bearing of the foot occasioned by the extension of the fore 
part of the hoof forward, and of its side walls downward, 
frequently produces some degree of lameness; but it is 
that lameness of the ligaments, tendons and other tissues 
in and connected with the feet, which a man would incur 
by wearing a boot elevated three inches higher at the toe 
than at the heel, and then additionally tipped to one side 
or the other : but it bears not the slightest affinity to hoof- 
rot. And when the hoof is thus extended and thickened 
and elevated in front, Mr. Youatt is entirely mistaken in 
supposing that the "whole weight of the superincumbent 
parts" presses on this "lengthened part," or toe: it unques- 
tionably presses mainly on the heel — as would a man's 
weight with his boot elevated in front, as already mentioned. 
I never saw a dozen sheep suffering under hoof-rot which had 
"the inner surface of their pasterns sore and raw." And, 
finally, genuine hoof-rot never " commences " at the billex 
canal, any more than k does at the knee or nose of the animal. 
I could point out additional minor errors in Mr. Youatt's 
descriptions; but it is unnecessary. He must have written 
them without much personal observation of the disease, or he 
describes a different one — or hoof-rot presents essentially 
different early symptoms in Europe from what it does in the 
United States.* 

The horny covering of the sheep's foot extends up, 
gradually thinning out, some way between the toes, or 
divisions of the hoof — and above these horny walls the cleft 
is lined with skin. Where the points of the toes are spread 
apart, this skin is shown in front covered with soft, short 
hair. The heels can be separated only to a little distance^ 
and the skin that is in the cleft above them is naked. In a 



* I can not, however, accept either of the latter explanations. Mr. Youatt too 
vividly and clearly describes the later characteristic lesions of hoof- rot — and which 
appertain to no other disease — to leave any chance for the supposition that he was 
describing a different malady : and I have no idea, after examining Continental, unci 
other British accounts of it, that there is any material difference in its diagnostics as 
between any part of Europe and America, — except that among certain breeds of sheep 
it is less virulent than among others. Mr. Youatt seems to me evidently to include 
among the initial symptoms of hoof-rot, those of gravel, inflammation of the biflex 
canal, and other scarcely named abnormal conditions of the foot, which come and go 
without any connection with hoof-rot — which never produced it — and which do not 
in one instance in a hundred, or five hundred, accompany it. Mr. Youatt, in tracing 
the origin and progress of this malady, seems to me to have leaned quite too 
heavily on the statements, or rather the speculations of Professor Dick, of Edinburgh — 
a writer of ability, but evidently a very unpractical one on the subject of hoof-rot. 



HOOF - EOT. 359 

healthy foot it is as firm, sound, smooth and dry as the skin 
between a man's fingers, which, indeed, it not a little 
resembles, on a mere superficial inspection. It is equally 
destitute of any appearance of redness, or of feverish heat. 

The first symptom of hoof- rot, uniformly, in my experi- 
ence, is a disappearance of this smooth, dry, colorless 
condition of the naked skin at the top of the cleft over the 
heels, and of its coolness. It is a little moist, a little red, 
and the skin has a slightly chafed or eroded appearance — 
sometimes being a very little corrugated, as if the parts had 
been subjected to the action of moisture. And on placing the 
fingers over the heels it will be found that the natural coolness 
of the parts has given place to a degree of heat. The 
inflammation thenceforth increases pretty rapidly. The part 
first attacked becomes sore. The moisture — the ichorous 
discharge — is increased. A raw ulcer of some extent is 
soon established. It is extended down to the upper portion 
of the inner walls of the hoof, giving them a whitened and 
ulcerous appearance. Those thin walls become disorganized, 
and the ulceration penetrates between the fleshy sole and the 
bottom of the hoof. On applying some force, or on shaving 
away the horn, it will be found that the connection between 
the horny and fleshy sole is severed, perhaps half way from 
the heel to the toe, and half way from the inner to the outer 
wall of the hoof. The hoof is thickened with great rapidity 
at the heel by an unnatural deposition of horn. The crack or 
cavity between it and the fleshy sole very soon exudes a 
highly fetid matter, which begins to have a purulent appear- 
ance. The extent of the separation increases by the 
disorganization of the surrounding structures ; the ulceration 
penetrates throughout the entire extent of the sole ; it begins 
to form sinuses in the body of the fleshy sole ; the purulent 
discharge becomes more profuse ; the horny sole is gradually 
disorganized, and finally the outer walls and points of the toes 
alone remain. The fleshy sole is now a black, swollen mass 
of corruption, of the texture of a sponge saturated with 
bloody pus, and every cavity is filled with crawling, squirming 
maggots. The horny toe disappears; the thin, shortened 
side walls merely adhere at the coronet ; they yield to the 
disorganization; and nothing is left but a shapeless mass of 
spongy ulcer and maggots. Attempts to cure the disease, the 
state of the weather, and other incidental circumstances, cause 
some variations from the above line of symptoms. When the 
first attack occurs in hot weather, the progress of the malady 
is much more rapid and violent. The fly sometimes deposits 



300 HOOP -EOT. 

its eggs in the ulcer, and maggots appear almost before — 
sometimes actually before — there are any cavities formed, 
into which they can penetrate. The early appearance of 
maggots greatly accelerates the progress of disorganization 
in the structures. 

The fore-feet are usually first attacked — sometimes both 
of them simultaneously, but more generally only one of them. 
The animal at first manifests but little constitutional dis- 
turbance. It eats as is its wont. When the disease has 
partly run its course in one foot, the other fore-foot is likely 
to be attacked, and presently the hind ones. "When a foot 
becomes considerably disorganized, it is held up by the 
animal. When another one reaches the same state, the 
miserable sufferer seeks its food on its knees ; and if forced to 
rise and walk, its strange, hobbling gait betrays the intense 
agony it endures on bringing its ulcerated feet in contact 
with the ground. There is a bare spot on the under side of 
the brisket of the size of the palm of a man's hand — but 
perhaps a little longer — which looks red and inflamed. 
There is a degree of general fever — and the appetite is dull. 
The animal rapidly loses condition, but retains considerable 
strength. No where else do sheep seem to me to exhibit such 
tenacity of life. After the disappearance of the bottom of 
the hoof, the maggot speedily closes the scene. Where the 
rotten foot is brought in contact with the side in lying down, 
the filthy, ulcerous matter adheres to and saturates the short 
avooI of the shorn sheep : and maggots also are either carried 
there by the foot, or they are speedily generated by the fly. 
A black crust soon forms, and raises a little higher round the 
spot. It is the decomposition of the surrounding structures — 
wool, skin and muscle — and innumerable maggots are at 
work below, burroAving into the living tissues, and eating up 
the miserable animal alive. The black, festering mass rapidly 
extends, and the cavities of the body Avill soon be penetrated, 
if the poor sufferer is not sooner relieved of its tortures by 
death. 

The offensi\ r e odor of the ulcerated feet, almost from the 
beginning of the disease, is so peculiar that it is strictly 
pathognomonic. I haA r e ahvays believed that I could by the 
sense of smell alone, in the most absolute darkness, decide on 
the presence of hoof -rot Avith unerring certainty. And I had 
about as lief trust my fingers as my eyes to establish the same 
point, from the hour of the first attack, if no other disease of 
the foot is present. But the heat, which inA'ariably marks the 
earliest presence of hoof-rot, might arise from any other 



HOOF -EOT. 361 

cause which produced a local inflammation of the same 
parts. 

When the malady has been well kept under during the 
first summer of its attack, but not entirely eradicated, it will 
almost or entirely disappear as cold weather approaches, and 
not manifest itself again until the warm weather of the succeed- 
ing summer. It then assumes a mitigated form ; the sheep are 
not rapidly and simultaneously attacked; there seems to be less 
inflammatory action in the diseased parts, and less constitu- 
tional disturbance ; and the course of the disease is less malig- 
nant, more tardy, and it more readily yields to treatment. 
If well kept under the second summer, it is still milder the third. 
A sheep will occasionally be seen to limp, but its condition 
will scarcely be affected, and dangerous symptoms will rarely 
supervene. One or two applications of remedies made during 
the summer, will now suffice to keep the disease under, and 
a little vigor in the treatment will entirely extinguish it. 

With all its fearful array of symptoms, can the hoof-rot be 
cured in its first attack on a flock? The worst case can be 
promptly cured, as I know by repeated experiments. Take a 
single sheep, put it by itself, and administer the remedies 
daily, after the English fashion, or as I shall presently prescribe, 
and there is not an ovine disease which more surely yields to 
treatment. But, as already remarked, in this country where 
sheep are so cheap and labor in the summer months so dear, 
it would be out of the question for an extensive flock-master 
to attempt to keep each sheep by itself, or to make a daily 
application of remedies. There is not a flock-master within 
my knowledge who has ever pretended to apply his remedies 
oftener than once a week, or regularly as often as that ; 
and not one in ten makes any separation between the 
diseased and healthy sheep of a flock into which the malady 
has been once introduced. The consequence necessarily is 
that though a cure is effected of the sheep then diseased, it 
has infected or inoculated others — and these in turn scatter 
the contagion, before they are cured. There is not a particle 
of doubt — nay, I know, by repeated observation, that a sheep 
once entirely cured may again contract the disease, and thus 
the malady performs a perpetual circuit in the flock. Fortu- 
nately, however, the susceptibility to contract the disease 
diminishes, according to my observation, with every succeeding 
attack; and fortunately also, as already stated, succeeding 
attacks, other things being equal, become less and less 
virulent. 

16 



362 hoof-eot. 

What course, then, shall he pursued? Shall the flock- 
master sacrifice his sheep — shall he take the ordinary half- 
way course — or shall he expend more on the sheep than they 
are worth in attempting to cure them? Neither. The course 
I would advise him to pursue, will appear as I detail the 
experiments I have made. 

Treatment. — The preparation of the foot is a subject of 
no dispute, but the labor can be prodigiously economized by 
attention to a few not very commonly observed particulars. 
Sheep should be yarded for the operation immediately after 
a rain, if practicable, as then the hoofs can be readily cut. 
In a dry time, and after a night which has left no dew on the 
grass, their hoofs are almost as tough as horn. They must 
be driven through no mud, or soft dung, on their way to the 
yard, which doubles the labor of cleaning their feet. The 
yard must be small, so they can be easily caught, and it must 
be kept well littered down, so they shall not fill their feet 
with their own manure. If the straw is wetted, their hoofs 
will not of course dry and harden as rapidly as in dry straw. 
Could the yard be built over a shallow, gravelly-bottomed 
brook,* it would be an admirable arrangement. The hoofs 
would be kept so soft that the greatest and most unpleasant 
part of the labor, as ordinarily performed, would in a great 
measure be saved ; and they would be kept free from that 
dung which, by any other arrangement, will more or less get 
into their feet. 

The principal operator or foreman seats himself in a chair — 
a couple of good sharp knives, (one at least a thin and narrow 
one,) a whetstone, the powerful toe-nippers (figured on page 
169,) a bucket of water with a couple of linen rags in it, and 
such medicines as he chooses to employ, within his reach. 
The assistant catches a sheep and lays it partly on its back 
and rump, between the legs of the foreman, the head coming 
up about to his middle. The assistant then kneels on some 
straw, or seats himself on a low stool at the hinder extremity 
of the sheep. If the hoofs are long, and especially if they 
are dry and tough, the assistant presents each foot to the 
foreman, who shortens the hoof with the toe-nippers. If 
there is any filth between the toes, each man, after first using 
a stick, takes his rag from the bucket of water, draws it 
between the toes and rinses it, until the filth is removed. 
Each then seizes his knife, and the process of paring away 

* A place might be prepared in any little brook by graveling or by laying, a floor 
of boards on the bottom. 



HOOF-ROT. 363 

the horn commences. And on the effectual performance of 
this, all else depends. 

If the disease is in the first stage — *. e., if there is merely 
an erosion and ulceration of the cuticle and flesh in the cleft 
above the walls of the hoof, no paring is necessary. But 
if ulceration has established itself between the hoof and the 
fleshy sole, the ulcerated parts, be they more or less extensive, 
must be entirely denuded of their horny covering, cost what it 
may of time and care. It is better not to wound the sole so 
as to cause it to bleed freely, as the running blood Avill wash 
off the subsequent applications ; but no fear of wounding the 
sole must prevent a full compliance with the rule above laid 
down. At worst, the blood can soon be staunched, however 
freely it flows, by a few touches of a caustic — say butyr of 
antimony. 

If the foot is -in the third stage — a mass of rottenness and 
filled with maggots — the maggots should first be killed by 
spirits of turpentine, or a solution of corrosive sublimate (see 
page 190) or other equally efficient application. It can be 
most conveniently used from a bottle having a quill through 
the cork. By continuing to remove the dead maggots with 
a stick, and to expose and kill the deeper lodged ones, all can 
be extirpated. Every particle of loose horn should then be 
removed, though it take the entire hoof, — and it frequently 
does take the entire hoof at an advanced stage of the disease. 
The foot should be cleansed if necessary with a solution of 
chloride of lime, in the proportion of a pound of the chloride 
to a gallon of water.* If this is not at hand, plunging the 
foot repeatedly in water, just short of scalding hot, will 
answer the purpose. And. now comes the important question, 
what constitutes the best remedy? 

The recipes for its cure are innumerable. One much used 
in New England at an early day, under the recommendation 
of " Consul Jarvis," f was compoimded as follows : 

1. Roman or blue vitriol, pulverized very fine, three parts, 
with one part of white lead, mixed into a thin paste with 
linseed oil. 

2. Another recipe, also much used in New England, is 



* Mr. Youatt recommends this, and says it "will remove the fetor and tendency 
to sloughing and mortification which are the too freqnent attendants on foot-rot." I 
never yet saw mortification (gangrene) of the foot result from this disease. Mr. 
Youatt's directions as to treatment are far more satisfactory than are his statements of 
the causes and symptoms of this malady. 

t The Hon. William Jarvis is universally known under this appellation in New 
England. 



364 HOOF -EOT. 

as follows: — 4 ounces blue vitriol, 2 oz. verdigris to a junk 
bottle of urine. 

3. Spirits of turpentine, tar and verdigris, in equal parts. 

4. The following recipe used to be hawked about the 
country at the price of $5, the purchaser having promised 
inviolable secrecy: — 3 quarts alcohol, 1 pint spirits of turpen- 
tine, 1 pint of strong vinegar, 1 lb. of blue vitriol, 1 lb. of 
copperas, l£ lbs. verdigris, 1 lb. alum, 1 lb. of saltpetre, 
pounded fine ; mix in a close bottle, shake every day, and let 
it stand six or eight days before using: also mix 2 lbs. of 
honey and 2 quarts tar and apply it after the previous 
compound. u Two applications to entirely remove disease." 

5. A saturated solution of bine vitriol applied through a 
quill in a cork — and finely pulverized vitriol dusted over 
the parts when wet. This was the favorite remedy of the 
farmers in the region where I reside, twenty-five years ago. 

6. The most common and popular remedy now used in 
Central New York is: — 1 lb. blue vitriol; £ lb. (with some 
£ lb.) verdigris ; 1 pint of linseed oil ; 1 quart of tar. The 
vitriol and verdigris are pulverized very fine, and many per- 
sons before adding the tar, grind the mixture through a 
paint mill. Some use a decoction of tobacco boiled until 
thick, in the place of oil. 

V. The remedy recommended by Mr. James Hogg, of 
Scotland, is turpentine 2 ounces, sulphuric acid 2 drachms — 
to be well mixed before it is used and applied freely to the 
diseased part. 

8. Mr. Spconer thinks 1 oz. of olive oil and double the 
quantity of sulphuric acid, an improvement on the above. 
He says " the acid must be mixed carefully with turpentine, 
as considerable inflammation immediately takes place." He 
remarks that he has used all the powerful acids with success, 
and that he imagines it of but little consequence which 
caustic is employed, provided it be of sufficient strength. 

9. Mr. Youatt recommends washing the foot in a strong 
solution of chloride of lime, and then resorting to " muriate 
or butyr of antimony." The foot to be dressed every day, 
and each new separation of horn removed, and every portion 
of fungus submitted to the action of the caustic, and a little 
clean tow to be wrapped round the foot and bound tightly 
down with tape, if the foot is principally stripped of its horn. 

10. The following is the English "Halt Receipt." It is 
given in the prize essay of Mr. Robert Smith, already on 
numerous occasions cited ; and Mr. Smith says he has found 



HOOF -EOT. 365 

this remedy " invaluable both in staying its progress, and 
curing the disease :" — 1 oz. corrosive sublimate ; 1 oz. blue 
vitriol ; 1 oz. spirits of salts ; [1 oz. verdigris ; 1 oz. horse 
turpentine ; 1 oz. oil of vitriol ; £ oz. spirits of turpentine ■ 
and 4 ozs. sheep ointment. (The last I presume means 
mercurial ointment.) "To be well mized when prepared, 
and kept tied down [in a bottle] when not in use." 

Mr. Smith also says: — "When the foot has become much 
diseased from neglect, it should be placed in an oil -cake 
poultice for twelve hours ; then washed clean with warm 
water, and the poultice renewed again in twelve hours more; 
then to be again washed, and the diseased parts probed to 
the bottom and dressed ; then to be tied up in common tar 
for twenty-four hours, and renewed when necessary, again 
apjolying the ointment. Opening medicine will materially 
assist in the cure of obstinate cases." 

Any of these remedies, and fifty more that might be com- 
pounded, simply by combining caustics, stimulants, etc., in 
different forms and proportions, will prove sufficient for the 
extirpation of hoof- rot, with proper preparatory and subse- 
quent treatment. On these last, beyond all question, principally 
depends the comparative success of the applications. 

First. No external remedy can succeed in this malady 
unless it comes in contact with all the diseased parts of the 
foot — for if such part, however small, is unreached, the 
unhealthy and ulcerous action is perpetuated in it, and it grad- 
ually spreads over and again involves the surrounding tissues. 
Therefore every portion of the diseased flesh must be 
denuded of horn, filth, dead tissue, pus, and every other 
substance which can prevent the application from actually 
touching it, and producing its characteristic effects on it. 

Second. The application must be kept in contact with the 
diseased surfaces long enough to exert its proper remedial 
influence. If removed, by any means, before this is accom- 
plished, it must necessarily proportionably fail in its effects. 

The preparation of the foot, then, requires no mean skill. 
The tools must be sharp, the movements of the operator 
careful and deliberate. As he shaves down near the quick, he 
must cut thinner and thinner, and with more and more care, 
or else he will either fail to remove the horn exactly far enough, 
or he will cut into the fleshy sole and cause a rapid flow 
of blood. I have already remarked that the blood can be 
staunched by caustics — but they coagulate it on the surface 
in a mass which requires removal before the application of 



3G6 HOOF -ROT. 

remedies, and in the process of its removal the blood is very 
frequently set flowing again, and this sometimes several 
times follows the application of the caustic* Cutting down 
to the crack between the horny and fleshy sole, is not enough. 
The operator must ascertain whether there is any ulceration 
bet ween the outside horny walls and the fleshy part of the foot 
— or at the toe — or whether there is even a rudiment of an 
unreached sinus or cavity in any part of the foot where the 
ulceration has penetrated or is beginning to penetrate. The 
practiced eye decides these questions rapidly from the 
characteristic appearances, without the removal of unneces- 
sary horn : but the new beginner must feel his Avay along 
cautiously, removing more horn where there is doubt, 
but so removing it that he will not unnecessarily cause an 
effusion of blood, or uncover the healthy quick, or dis- 
arrange the proper bearing of the foot. If the foot is in 
the third state, the removal of the maggots, the cleaning of 
the ulcers, the proper excision of the dead tissues, etc., 
require much time — sometimes more than half an hour to 
each foot. The most experienced operator cannot perform 
such processes in a hurry — the inexperienced one must 
perform them slowly, or all the time saved Avill be lost, twenty 
times over, in having to repeat them for an indefinite number 
of times. 

English and Continental modes of treatment — the constant 
separation of the infected — daily dressings — poultices changed 
every twelve hours, with intermediate washings, probings, 
etc., as recommended by Mr. Smith — bandages — cloth boots 
— cloth boots with leather soles,f <fec, &c, would cost more 
than the sheep would be worth after they were cured, in 
this country of high and scarce labor ; and, in point of fact, 
in most regions, in the busy period of haying and harvesting 
when hoof-rot is at its height, the necessary labor could not 
be commanded at any cost. And yet if that labor could be 
obtained, the cost of it would not much exceed, in the long 
run, the aggregate cost of the labor actually devoted 
to the same end. The foreign practitioner promptly cures 
the malady. The American farmer, who has from one to two 
hundred infected sheep, during the first year when the disease 
is violent, drives them into a stable — a small one so they can 
be caught easily — once in ten days or a fortnight. An unoccu- 

* I remember to have seen these recommended by some Continental Veteri- 
narian whose name I can not now recall. 

t The toe vein bleeds very freely, and it often requires some time and trouble 
to staunch it. 



HOOP -EOT. 367 

died afternoon — generally a rainy one, when nothing else 
can be done — is selected. Possibly a little straw is put on the 
floor of the stable at first — but in half an hour every foot is 
full of soft dung. The farmer, his hired man, and perhaps a 
boy or two, sit doAvn to the task. Each is armed with a 
thick, broad-bladed, dull "jack-knife." The whole party 
then proceed literally to " cut and sear!" Some of the feet 
are cut down deeply into the quick, so that blood gushes 
from them in streams — others, which have too tough hoofs, 
have them left half an inch thick at the sole — covering up, 
very likely, rapidly developing ulcers. Blood and dung and 
" medicine" are left applied in about equal proportions to each 
foot. To crown the whole proceeding, the sheep are turned 
out as fast as " doctored" into the rain, or into wet grass, so 
that in ten minutes' time not a trace of the remedy applied 
remains on the foot. In such flocks the disease is barely 
kept at bay : it is never cured. The second and third year 
the " doctorings" become less and less frequent — but they 
must be resorted to occasionally, perpetually, or some of the 
sheep will get down on their knees. The farmer always finds 
bitter fault with the " medicine." He gets a new kind — with 
more ingredients* — and tries again. But he never finds the 
right one ! 

The above picture is, doubtless, an extreme one — but do 
we not all constantly witness more or less near practical 
approximations to it ? The separation of the sheep, poultic- 
ing, inclosing of the foot, &c, I believe to be unnecessary — 
but the feet must be well prepared, and the sheep must be kept 
out of the rain, or grass wetted by rain or dew, for twenty- 
four or thirty-six hours afterward — the longer the better. 
Without this the most careful preparation of the foot and 
the best remedies cannot be made effectual. It is true that 
out-door moisture will not prevent the escharotic effects of 
powerful caustics, which do that portion of their work almost 
at oncef — but these are not beneficially applied in ordinary 
cases ; and when properly applied I am not prepared to say 
what would be the effects of the immediate and long continued 

* In this particular Mr. Kobert Smith's English " halt receipt," is a pattern I If 
such a jumble of ingredients, fortunately, do not chance to counteract each other, no 
well informed man ought for a moment to suppose there can be any utility in com- 
pounding so many articles together. This remedy I doubt not is a good one, as a 
whole, — but it does, in my opinion, contain some substances which neutralize each 
other's medicinal properties ! 

t I should consider that moisture highly beneficial in diluting those powerful and 
deeply corroding caustics which are sometimes profusely applied to the bottom and 
sides of the toes and in the cleft between them — such as aqua-fortis and oil of vitriol. 



368 HOOF -ROT. 

exposure of the unhealthy and cauterized surfaces to water. 
I venture to say that effect would not be auspicious. In 
the case of milder applications, which do not immediately cau- 
terize — and from which different and less instantaneous effects 
are expected, as, for instance, from blue vitriol — the immediate 
and continued contact of water washes them off almost before 
they begin to exert their remedial effects. It is to prevent 
this that oil and tar are made portions of some of the 
preceding prescriptions. They will do some good in this 
way after they dry on the surface of the flesh; but they are 
wholly inadequate to the end, if the sheep is turned on wet 
grass immediately after their application. The best place to 
put sheep after applying the remedies to their feet, is on the 
naked floors of stables — scattering them over as much surface 
as practicable, so that there shall be as little accumulation of 
manure as possible under foot. Straw, especially if fresh 
littered down, absorbs or rubs off the moist substances 
which have been applied to their feet. The bottoms of the 
feet are soon thus cleaned off. A boy should go round 
with a shovel, until night, taking up the dung as fast as 
dropped. The sheep should be kept in the stables over the 
first night, and not let out the next day until the dew is off 
the grass: then they should be turned on the most closely 
cropped grass on the farm. It well pays for the trouble to 
put them in the stables the second night before the dew falls, 
and to keep them, as before, until it is dried off the next day. 

I have never found that for moderate cases of hoof-rot — 
the worst ones which are allowed to occur in well managed 
flocks — that there is, in reality, any possible beneficial 
addition to mere blue vitriol, as a remedy, if it is applied in 
the most effective w r ay. Twice I have cured a diseased flock 
by one application of it — and I never heard of it being done 
in any other way, or, indeed, on any other occasions. The 
following paragraph is from my " Sheep Husbandry in the 
South," published in 1848: 

" I had a flock of sheep a few years since that were in the 
second season of the disease. They had been but little 
looked to during the summer, and as cold w^eather w r as setting 
in many of them were considerably lame — some of them 
quite so. The snow fell and they Avere brought into the 
yards, limping, and hobbling about deplorably. This sight, 
so digraceful to me as a farmer, roused me into activity. 
I bought a quantity of blue vitriol — made the necessary 
arrangements — and once more took the chair as principal 



HOOF -ROT. 369 

operator. Never were the feet of a flock more thoroughly 
pared. Into a large washing tub, in which two sheep could, 
stand conveniently, I poured a saturated solution of blue 
vitriol and water, as hot as could be endured by the hand 
even for a moment. The liquid was about four inches deep 
on the bottom of the tub, and was kept at about that depth 
by frequent additions of the hot solution. As soon as a sheep's 
feet were pared, it was placed in the tub and held there by the 
neck, by an assistant. A second one was prepared and placed 
beside it. When the third one was ready, the first was taken 
out, and so on. Two sheep were thus constantly in the tub, 
and each remained in it about ten* minutes. The cure was 
perfect. There was not a lame sheep in the flock during the 
winter or the next summer. The hot liquid penetrated to 
every cavity of the foot, and doubtless had a far more decisive 
effect even on the uncovered ulcers, than would have been 
produced by merely wetting them. Perhaps the lateness of 
the season was also favorable, as in cold weather the ulcers of 
ordinary virulence discharge no matter to innoculate the 
healthy feet; and thus at the time of applying the remedy 
there are no cases where there has been innoculation not yet 
followed by "the actual disease. I think that the vitriol 
required for the above one hundred sheep was about twelve 
pounds, and that it cost me fifteen cents per pound. The 
account then would stand thus: — 12 lbs. of vitriol at 15 cents, 
$1.80; labor of 3 men one day each, $2.25; total $4.05 — or 
about four cents per sheep." 

Many years after the above took place, I treated a flock of 
diseased lambs in the same way — except that they were put 
into a larger tub which would hold five of them, so that each 
stood in the hot fluid from twenty to twenty-five minutes : 
and again the cure was perfect. They too were handled just 
as winter was setting in ; were wintered alone ; and were 
turned early in the spring into a flock of about one hundred 
and fifty which had never had hoof- rot. 

I believe the same remedy administered hi the same way 
would be the cheapest f and most effectual one known for 
large flocks ; and if I had to go through another Avar with 
the hoof- rot, I would construct a vat which would hold eight 
or ten sheep — perhaps with a grate over the fluid to prevent 
accidents J — and I would contrive some mode to keep the 

* This, by a misprint, was published five, in Sheep Husbandry in the South, 
t Blue vitriol costs more than formerly — but it is still a very cheap remedy when 
bought by the quantity. 

% If ten sheep were put in a vat together, the attendant might have some difficulty 

16* 



370 HOOF -ROT. 

water hot, after it was poured into the vat. And if the 
disease was in its new and malignant stage, I might keep 
every slut]) half an hour or upwards in the hot liquor. I do 
not aver that one application would cure all cases in that 
stage, but I judge from my experience that it would be more 
likely to do it than any other application I ever heard of. 

When the disease is in what I have termed the third 
stage — when a decomposition of the tissues has taken place 
and a poAverful escharotic is requisite to remove the dead 
structures and their ulcerous accompaniments — there is, as 
Mr. Youatt observes, no application comparable with chloride 
or buytr of antimony. I have used nitric, sulphuric and 
muriatic acid; and instead of finding, with Mr. Spooner, that 
it "is of little consequence which caustic is employed, pro- 
vided it is of sufficient strength,"* I have found all the 
latter to possess too much " strength " — or, at least, to be too 
deeply corrosive when applied to flesh ; while the butyr of 
antimony combines so readily Avith the fluids in the parts, that 
it very soon loses its caustic effects. It therefore, to a very 
considerable degree, possesses the admirable property of 
nitrate of silver (too expensive a material to be used in hoof- 
rot) of acting purely as a superficial caustic, so that an eschar 
is formed protecting the parts beneath, and promoting a new 
and healthy action. I much prefer muriatic acid to either 
nitric or sulphuric acid, when butyr of antimony is not to be 
obtained. 

I have no space to discuss the questions whether hoof- rot 
is contagious — and whether it also originates without 
contagion. On the first point I will only say that I should 
esteem that man out of his senses who, after having very 
extended opportunities for observing its origin and for tracing 
its history in any particular region, should doubt its direct, 
decided and (after sufficient exposure of healthy animals to its 
virus,f) uniform contagiousness. Whether it is generated by 

occasionally, in keeping them all on their feet. Lying down or fulling down in the 
water would produce no catastrophe : it would not harm the sheep a particle — but it 
would dye it a light bine, and the liquor would be unnecessarily wasted. 

* Spooner on Sheep, p. 111. 

+ 1 am inclined to believe that it is not communicated by effluvium — by infect ion 
or even necessarily by contact between diseased and undiseased animals. I think it 
is chiefly, if not entirely communicated by a species of inoculation, if I may ao term 
it — by (he virus of a diseased foot being brought in contact with the inner portion of 
an undiseased lout. If this is a correct hypothesis, it, would seem to follow that the 
malady would not be very likely to be communicated in all its stages; and that the 
rapidity of its transmission at all periods would depend somewhat upon chance. 
Sheep take it far most rapidly by being turned Into pastures where diseased sheep 
have been some time running, and where a thousand blades of grass and other sub- 
stances liable to come in contact with the inner portion of the foot, arc charged with 
a quantity of the virus. 



HOOF-KOT. 371 

dirt, moisture, etc., without contagion, may perhaps be more 
doubtful. Some intelligent farmers take the affirmative of 
this question. In a letter I have just received from Mr. 
W. P. Greer, of Painesville, Ohio, he says: — "When in 
Lorain county (Ohio) in April last, I was told by many of 
the sheep men there that hoof -rot appears wherever sheep 
are kept in tall, rank feed — in the form of fouls at first. 
They were all of the opinion that it does appear sponta- 
neously, and cited numerous instances to prove their theory." 
Different countries and climates may probably be subject 
to the appearance of the disease under different circumstances. 
It is the prevailing view among English veterinary writers 
that hoof-rot frequently originates without contagion in Great 
Britain, though this opinion is not without its able dissentients. 
I have repeatedly known it to commence in that portion of 
the United States where I reside, without the owner of the 
sheep being able to trace it to any contagion. I have at 
page 1G5 mentioned two cases where my own sheep contracted 
it from flocks brought into contact with them accidentally, 
and for but a short period ; and any one who reads the facts 
in those cases will readily see that the removal of the diseased 
sheep which communicated the malady, might readily have 
taken place without my ever being informed of the circum- 
stances ; and then I might have imagined that it was caused 
by "tall feed." But I never yet have heard of a case of 
fouls becoming hoof-rot, or of the latter disease occurring 
" spontaneously " in any new region where hoof-rot had 
never been previously introduced by diseased sheep, or where 
it was not at the time prevailing in a greater or less degree 
in some flock in the vicinity, or within a few miles. And we 
all know that there are very many regions where it has 
never been heard of among the sheep, though the grass is 
as tall, and all the other supposed exciting causes, except 
contagion, are fully equal. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

OTHEK DISEASES, WOUNDS, ETC. 

THE ROT SCROFULA — HEREDITARY DISEASES — CUTS — 

LACERATED AND CONTUSED WOUNDS — PUNCTURED "WOUNDS 

— DOG BITES — POISONED WOUNDS — SPRAINS — BRUISES 

ABSCESS. 

The Rot. — As already remarked, I have never witnessed 
an instance of the rot in the United States ; although I have 
repeatedly seen sheep laboring under diseases called by that 
name. My opinion is that it has never appeared, at least, in 
our Northern States. Persons of much intelligence, residing 
in some of the Western and South -westei'n States believe 
they have recognized it ; but I do not remember to haAe seen 
any of their expressions to that effect properly supported by 
the published results of post-mortem examinations. 

The symptoms of the disease are thus given by Mr. 
Spooner : — " The first symptoms attending this disease are 
by no means strongly marked; there is no loss of condition, but 
rather apparently the contrary; indeed, sheep intended for the 
butcher have been purposely cothed or rotted in order to 
increase their fattening properties for a few weeks, a practice 
which was adopted by the celebrated Bakewell. A want of 
liveliness and paleness of the membranes generally may be 
considered as the first symptoms of the disease, to which may 
be added a yellowness of the caruncle at the corner of the 
eye. Dr. Harrison observes, 'when in warm, sultry or rainy 
weather, sheep that are grazing on low and moist lands feed 
rapidly, and some of them die suddenly, there is fear that they 
have contracted the rot.' This suspicion will be further 
increased if, a lew weeks afterward, the sheep begin to shrink 
and become flaccid about the loins. By pressure about the 
hips at this time a crackling is perceptible now or soon after- 
ward, the countenance looks pale, and upon parting the fleece 
the skin is found to have changed its Vermillion tint for a pale 



THE ROT. 373 

red, and the wool is easily separated from the pelt ; and as 
the disorder advances the skin becomes dappled with yellow 
or black spots. To these symptoms succeed increased dull- 
ness, loss of condition, greater paleness of the mucous 
membranes, the eyelids becoming almost white and afterward 
yellow. This yellowness extends to other parts of the body, 
and a watery fluid appears under the skin, which becomes 
loose and flabby, the wool coming off readily. The symptoms 
of dropsy often extend over the body, and sometimes the 
sheep becomes chockered, as it is termed — a large swelling 
forms under the jaw, which, from the appearances of the 
fluid it contains, is in some places called the watery poke. 
The duration of the disease is uncertain ; the animal occasion- 
ally dies shortly after becoming affected, but more frequently 
it extends to from three to six months, the sheep gradually 
losing* flesh and pining away, particularly if, as is frequently 
the case, an obstinate purging supervenes." 

Mr. Youatt thus describes the post-mortem appearances : 
" When a rotted sheep is examined after death, the whole 
cellular tissue is found to be infiltrated, and a yellow serous 
fluid everywhere follows the knife. The muscles are soft and 
flabby : they have the appearance of being macerated. The 
kidneys are pale, flaccid and infiltrated. The mesenteric 
glands enlarged, and engorged with yellow serous fluid. The 
belly is frequently filled with water or purulent matter ; the 
peritoneum is everywhere thickened, and the boAvels adhere 
together by means of an unnatural growth. The heart is 
enlarged and softened, and the lungs are filled with tubercles. 
The principal alterations of structure are in the liver. It is 
pale, livid, and broken down with the slightest pressure ; and 
on being boiled it will almost dissolve away. When the liver 
is not pale, it is often curiously spotted. In some cases it is 
speckled like the back of a toad. Nevertheless, some parts of 
it are hard and schirrous ; others are ulcerated, and the 
biliary ducts are filled with flukes. Here is the decided seat 
of disease, and it is here that the nature of the malady is to be 
learned. It is inflammation of the liver. * * * The liver 
attracts the principal attention of the examiner ; it displays 
the evident effects of acute and destructive inflammation ; and 
still more plainly the ravages of the parasite with which its 
ducts are crowded. Here is plainly the original seat of the 
disease — the center whence a destructive influence spreads on 
every side. * * * The Fluke — the Fasciola of Linnaeus 
— the Distoma liepaticum of Rhodolphi — the Planaria of 



314 



THE ROT. 



Goese — is found in the biliary ducts of the sheep, the goat, the 
deer, the ox, the horse, the ass, the hog, the dog, the rabbit, the 
guinea-pig, and various other animals, and even in the human 
being. It is from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a 
quarter in length, and from one-third to half an inch in 
greatest breadth. 

"Figs. 1 and 3 represent this parasite of its usual size and 
appearance, and its resemblance to a minute sole, divested of 
its fins, is very striking. The head is of a pointed form, round 
above and flat beneath ; and the mouth oj>ens laterally instead 





Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



of vertically. There arc no barbs or tentacula?, as described 
by some authors. The eyes are placed on the most prominent 
part of the head, and are very singularly constructed (fig. 2). 
They have the bony ring of the bird. * * * The anasta- 
moses of the blood vessels which ramify over the head arc 
plainly seen through a tolerable microscope. The circulating 
and digestive organs are also evident, and are seated almost 
immediately below the head. The situation of the heart is 
seen in fig. 1, and the two main vessels evidently springing 
from it, and extending through almost the whole length of 
the fluke. Smaller blood-vessels, if so they may be called, 
ramify from them on either side. * * 

"In the belly, if so it may be called, are almost invariably 
a very great number of oval particles, hundreds of which, 
taken together, are not equal in bulk to a grain of sand. 
They are of a pale red color, and are supposed to be the 
spawn or eggs of the parasite. * * * 

"There can be no doubt that the eggs are frequently 
received in the food. Having been discharged with the dung, 
they remain on the grass or damp spot on which they may 
fall, retaining their vital principle for an indefinite period of 
time. * * * They find not always, or they find not at all, 
a proper nidus in the places in which they are deposited ; but 
taken up with the food, escaping the perils of rumination, and 
threading every vessel and duct until they arrive at the biliary 
canal, they burst from their shells, and grow, and probably 
multiply. ***** 

"Leeuwenhoeck says that he has taken 870 flukes out of one 



THE EOT. 375 

liver, exclusive of those that were cut to pieces or destroyed 
in opening the various ducts. In other cases, and where the 
sheep have died of the rot, there were not found more than 
ten or twelve. * * * Then, is the fluke worm the cause 
or the effect of rot ? To a certain degree both. They 
aggravate the disease ; they perpetuate a state of irritability 
and disorganization which must necessarily undermine the 
strength of any animal. * * * Notwithstanding all this, 
however, if the fluke follow the analogy of other entoza and 
parasites, it is the effect and not the cause of rot. * * * 

" The rot in sheep is evidently connected with the soil or 
state of the pasture. It is confined to wet seasons, or to the 
feeding on ground moist and marshy at all seasons. It has 
reference to the evaporation of water, and to the presence 
and decomposition of moist vegetable matter. It is rarely or 
almost never seen on dry or sandy soils and in dry seasons ; 
it is rarely wanting on boggy or poachy ground, except when 
that ground is dried by the heat of the summer's sun, or 
completely covered by the winter's rain. On the same farm 
there are certain fields on which no sheep can be turned with 
mrpunity. There are others that seldom or never give the 
rot. The soil of the second is found to be of a pervious nature, 
on which wet cannot long remain — the first takes a long 
time to dry, or is rarely or never so. * * * 

" Some seasons are far more favorable to the development 
of the rot than others, and there is no manner of doubt as to 
the character of those seasons. After a rainy summer or a 
moist autumn, or during a wet winter, the rot destroys like a 
pestilence. A return and a continuance of dry weather mate- 
rially arrests its murderous progress. Most of the sheep that 
had been already infected die ; but the number of those that 
are lost soon begins to be materially diminished. It is, there- 
fore sufficiently plain that the rot depends upon, or is caused 
by, the existence of moisture. A rainy season and a tenacious 
soil are fruitful or inevitable sources of it. * * * The 
mischief is effected with almost incredible rapidity." 

Mr. Youatt here gives various instances to prove that rot 
is engendered in a few hours and even minutes.* He further 
says : — "It is an old observation that on all pasture that is sus- 
pected to be unsound, the sheep should be folded early in the 
evening, before the first dews begin to fall, and should not be 
released from the fold until the dew is partly evaporated. 
* * * Then the mode of prevention — that with which 

* Youatt, p. 453. 



370 THE ROT. 

the farmer will have most to do, for the sheep having become 
once decidedly rotten, neither medicine nor management Avill 
have much power in arresting the evil — consists in altering 
the character of as much of the dangerous ground as he can, 
and keeping his sheep from those pastures which defy all his 
attempts to improve them. * * * If all unnecessary 
moisture is removed from the soil, or if the access of air is 
cut otf by the flooding of the pasture, no poisonous gas has 
existence, and the sheep continue sound. * * * . The 
account of the treatment of rot must, to a considerable extent, 
be very \m satisfactory." 

Mr. Youatt recommends the sale of sheep to the butcher 
after they are found to be rotted! To give what may be 
styled the butcher's autopsy, I copy his remarks : — " It is 
one of the characters of the rot to hasten, and that to a 
strange degree, the accumulation of flesh and fat. Let not 
the farmer, however, push this experiment too far. Let him 
carefully overlook every sheep daily, and dispose of those 
which cease to make progress, or which seem beginning to 
retrograde. It has already been stated that the meat of the 
rotted sheep, in the early stage of the disease, is not like that 
of the sound one ; it is pale and not so firm; but it is not 
unwholesome, and it is coveted by certain epicures, who, 
perhaps, are not altogether aware of the real state of the 
animal. All this is a matter of calculation, and must be left 
to the owner of the sheep ; except that, if the breed is not of 
very considerable value, and the disease has not proceeded to 
emaciation or other fearful symptoms, the first loss will 
probably be the least ; and if the owners can get any thing 
like a tolerable price for them, the sooner they are sent to 
the butchers, or consumed at home, the better. Supposing, 
however, that their appearance is beginning to tell tales 
about them, and they are too far gone to be disposed of in 
the market or consumed at home, are they to be abandoned 
to their fate ? No : far from it." 

The above is a paragraph which I could most sincerely 
wish stricken from the writings of its accomplished author. 
It will astonish even those who are acquainted with the astute 
and calculating selfishness of Mr. Bakewell's character to learn 
that he purposely rotted sheep which were to be sold to the 
butcher, to avail himself of the superior fattening properties 
which the diseased animals temporarily possess ! This remark- 
able fact is stated by both Mr. Youatt and Mr. Spooner.* 

* The sale of the meat of diseased animals is regarded as infamous in all parts of 



THE EOT. 377 

Of the treatment of rot Mr. Youatt continues : — " If it is 
suited to the convenience of the farmer, and such ground 
were at all within his reach, the sheep should be sent to a 
salt-marsh in preference to the best pasture on the best farm. 
There it will feed on the salt incrusted on the herbage, and 
pervading the pores of every blade of grass. A healthy salt- 
marsh permits not the sheep to become rotten which graze 
upon it ; and if the disease is not considerably advanced, it 
cures 'those which are sent upon it with the rot. * * * Are 
there any indications of fever, heated mouth, heaving flanks, 
or failing appetite. Is the general inflammation beginning to 
have a determination to that part on which the disease 
usually expends its chiefest virulence ? Is there yellowness of 
of the lips and of the mouth, of the eyes and of the skin ? 
At the same time are there no indications of weakness 
and decay ? Nothing to show that the constitution is 
fatally undermined? Bleed — abstract, according to the cir- 
cumstances of the case, eight, ten, or twelve ounces of blood. 
There is no disease of an inflammatory character at its com- 
mencement, which is not benefited by early bleeding. To 
this let a dose of physic succeed — two or three ounces of 
Epsom salts, administered in the cautious manner so fre- 



the United States and in almost the only case where I ever knew it to occur in my 
vicinity, the seller — a very low man — was punished in exemplary damages by a jury 
and received the soubriquet of " Stinking Meat," which followed him through life. 
The meat sold by him had no offensive odor ; its condition was not discovered until it 
was partly consumed; nor was it then discovered by the taste or appearance of the meat 
— but by the information of a person privy to the facts. But it was proved that the 
animal was affected by a disease usually mortal, and expected to prove mortal in the 
jiresent case. I have forgotten what the disease was. There might have been semo 
color of proof that the meat proved unwholesome. Selling li unwholesome provi- 
sions " is a misdemeanor at common law, and therefore indictable. And every 
contract for provisions implies that they shall be wholesome. (See 3 Blackstone's 
Com., 165.) The vendor is bound to know they are sound and wholesome at his peril. 
American courts and juries have given an extensive construction to the term whole- 
some, in this connection. In fact, if it can be proved that a person has sold meat knowing 
that the animal, when killed, was laboring under any constitutional or serious malady, 
or even that it was killed to anticipate death from unnatural and accidental causes — 
if there is any good reason to suppose those causes placed the meat in the situation of 
that of a diseased animal — I say courts and juries under these circumstances demand 
only colorable proof that the meat is unwholesome to assess damages on the vendor. 
Thus in Fonda vs. Van Bracklin, the plaintiff recovered five dollars damages of the 
defendant, for selling him a quarter of beef from a cow that " had eaten shortly before 
she was killed, a very large quantity of peas and oats, and that was slaughtered 
for fear she would die in consequence of her having eaten them." It was proved that 
those who ate the beef "were generally made very sick and that one of Fonda's 
servants was sick two weeks from eating it." The case was carried up to the 
Supreme Court, &c, of the State of New York, and the judgment affirmed. I know 
nothing about the parties, but infer from the amount of the verdict that they were 
persons of low character, and that the proof of the subsequent illness of the persons 
who eat the meat, was not much credited. In other words, I infer that the verdict was, 
more than anything else, an expression that no man has a right to sell the meat 
of a diseased animal. The jury could not have believed that the meat produced 
the alleged effects. Such a verdict could not have been founded on that 
hypothesis. 



378 THE ROT. 

qucntly recommended ; and to these means let a change of 
diet be immediately added — good hay in the field, and hay, 
straw, or chaff", in the straw-yard. 

"The physic having operated, or an additional dose, 
perchance, having been administered in order to quicken the 
action of the first, the farmer will look out for further means 
and appliances. * * * Two or three grains of 
calomel may be given daily, but mixed with half the 
quantity of opium, in order to secure its beneficial and ward 
off" its injurious effects on the ruminant. To this should be 
added — a simple and cheap medicine, but that which is the 
sheet anchor of the practitioner here — common salt. * * 
In the first place, it is a purgative inferior to few, when given 
in a full dose ; and it is a tonic as well as a purgative. * * 
A mild tonic, as well as an aperient, is plainly indicated soon 
after the commencement of rot. The dose should be from 
two to three drachms, repeated morning and night. When 
the inflammatory stage is clearly passed, stronger tonics may 
be added to the salt, and there are none superior to the 
gentian and ginger roots; from one to two drachms of each, 
finely powdered, may be added to each dose of the salt. 

* * The sheep having a little recovered from the 
disease, should still continue on the best and driest pasture 
on the farm, and should always have salt within their reach. 
* * * »ph e rot j s not i n f ec tious." 

Scrofula. — I have never witnessed an instance of this 
malady in our country. Mr. Spooner says of it : — " Sheep are 
liable to a scrofulous disease which is almost uniformly fatal. 
It is called the evil in some places, and elsewhere receives 
other denominations. A hard swelling of the glands under the 
jaws is first observed; after a time small pustules appear about 
the head and neck, which break, discharging a white matter, 
then heal, and are followed by others more numerous. This 
gradually robs the animal of flesh, and slowly pining away, 
it becomes at length quite useless, and in this state is 
destroyed. It seldom attacks great numbers at a time, but 
selects generally a few individuals from a flock. 

" The writer, though he cannot say that he has perfectly 
succeeded in effecting a cure, has done so to a certain extent, 
so that the tumors disappeared and the animals improved in 
flesh and health, but afterwards relapsed. This he has 
accomplished by administering four or five grains of hydrio- 
date of potash daily in gruel, and rubbing the parts likewise 



HEREDITARY DISEASES. 379 

with ointment of iodide of mercury. As soon as the animal 
is considerably better, it should be sent to the butcher." 

Hereditary Diseases. — Mr. Finlay Dun, Lecturer on 
Materia Medica and Dietetics at the Edinburgh Veterinary 
College, after giving much attention to the subject of hered- 
itary diseases in domestic animals, summed up his conclusions 
as follows : 

1. "They are transmitted by the male as well as by the 
female parent, and are doubly severe in the offspring of 
parents, both of which are affected by them. 

2. They develop themselves not only in the immediate 
progeny of one affected by them, but also in many subsequent 
generations. 

3. They do not, however, always appear in each genera- 
tion in the same form ; one disease is sometimes substituted 
for another, analogous to it, and this again, after some 
generations, becomes changed into that to which the breed 
was originally liable, as phthisis (consumption) and dysentery. 
Thus, a stock of cattle previously subject to phthisis, some- 
times become affected for several generations with dysentery, 
to the exclusion of phthisis, but by and by, dysentery disap- 
pears to give place to phthisis. 

4. Hereditary diseases occur to a certain extent independ- 
ently of external circumstances, appearing under all sorts of 
management, and being little affected by changes of locality, 
separation from diseased stock, or such causes as modify the 
production of non-hereditary diseases. 

5. They are, however, most certainly and speedily devel- 
oped in circumstances inimical to general good health, and 
often occur at certain, so called, critical periods of life, when 
unusual demands on the vital powers take place. 

6. They show a striking tendency to modify and absorb 
into themselves all extraneous diseases ; for example, in an 
animal of consumptive constitution, pneumonia seldom runs 
its ordinary course, and when arrested, often passes into 
consumption. 

7. Hereditary diseases are less effectually treated by 
ordinary remedies than other diseases. Thus, although an 
attack of phthisis, rheumatism, or opthalmia may be subdued, 
and the patient put out of pain and danger, the tendency to 
the disease will still remain and be greatly aggravated by 
each attack. 

"In horses and neat cattle, hereditary diseases do not 



380 HEREDITARY DISEASES — CUTS. 

usually show themselves at birth, and sometimes the tendency 
remains latent for many years, perhaps through one or two 
generations, and afterwards breaks out with all its former 
severity." 

Mr. Dim's omission of sheep from the list of animals 
above named, as subjects of hereditary disease, is merely 
accidental, for in a paper on the "Hereditary Diseases of 
Sheep and Pigs," published in the Journal of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, 1856, he mentions, as among the hered- 
itary diseases of the former, epilepsy or fits, hydatids in the 
brain (or turnsick or sturdy), chronic cough, chronic diseases 
of the respiratory organs generally, diseases of the digestive 
organs, which produce diarrhea and dysentery, rheumatism, 
scrofula, tabes mesenterica (a variety of scrofulous disease,) 
and consumption. Mr. Dun says : — " When a scrofulous 
constitution presents itselt prominently in an adult sheep, 
it is generally in the form of pulmonary consumption, or, as 
it is technically termed, phthisis pulmonalis" He subse- 
quently adds : 

" But these are not the only evils which assail sheep of a 
scrofulous constitution. They are occasionally affected by 
chronic swellings about the neck and throat, at first hard, but 
afterwards softening, bursting externally, and discharging an 
unhealthy pus. These swellings are analogous to clyers iu 
cattle, and like them are most apt to occur in scrofulous 
subjects living in localities exposed to east winds. Scrofulous 
sheep are likewise subject to intractable swellings of the 
joints, to foot-rot in its most tedious and aggravated form ; 
and to rickets, a disease of the bones, occurring in early 
youth, from perverted nutrition, and consisting in a softening 
of the osseous tissue. They are further of such a weak and 
depraved constitution as to fall easy and early victims to any 
ordinary or prevailing diseases which, moreover, are in them 
developed with unusual severity." 

Cuts. — When a sheep has received a simple, clean cut, 
the edges of the wound should be brought accurately together 
and the skin confined by stitches. A bandage, if the situation 
of the wound admits of its use, will keep the separate parts 
better in place, and prevent the stitches in the skin from 
tearing out, as they ai*c apt to do when the cut is across the 
muscular fibers, so that their retraction has a tendency to pull 
the wound open. A little turpentine applied to the wool near 
*he parts, or to the bandage, will prevent the attack of the fly. 



WOUNDS — DOG BITES — POISONED WOUNDS. 381 

Lacerated and Contused Wounds. — If the wound is 
torn, and contused, the parts if not too much injured should 
be placed as near as practicable in their natural position ; if 
too much lacerated or crushed, the loose and disorganized 
parts should be carefully cut away. If the situation of the 
wound admits of it, a warm poultice may be applied, and 
changed twice a day, until healthy suppuration ensues. 
Afterward it will only require to be kept covered with an 
oiled or greased cloth, sufficiently touched with turpentine to 
repel the fly. If the situation of the wound does not admit 
of poulticing, it should be fomented until clean, and some 
mild stimulant applied. Mr. Spooner recommends tincture of 
myrrh, and an astringent powder compounded as follows: 
powdered chalk 4 oz., Armenian bole 1 oz., powdered charcoal 
1 oz., powdered alum •£ oz., sulphate of zinc £ oz. 

Punctured Wounds. — These are made by pointed 
instruments, splinters of wood, etc. Fomentations are 
generally made use of, and the Mountain Shepherd's Manual 
states that if these are made with a decoction of chamomile 
flowers, their good effects will be increased. " The method 
of applying [fomentations] is to dip a piece of woolen cloth 
into the decoction when hot, then to wring it, and apply it to 
the parts, dipping the cloth again when the heat has abated." 
If the wound heals on the outside before it does within, and 
matter forms in it, it must again be opened. 

Dog Bites. — From their torn and lacerated character, dog 
bites are generally very fatal, — and the more so, from the fact 
that the skin is generally stripped from large surfaces. When 
the latter has occurred in hot weather, and particularly 
when the skin is removed from the body, gangrene generally 
ensues speedily. I have attempted to procure the re-adhesion 
of the skin by carefully cleansing it, restoring the remaining 
portions to their natural position, and stitching the edges 
together : but in hot weather, and when the flies are abundant 
I have never succeeded when the denuded surfaces were at all 
extensive. In the latter cases, fatal gangrene has usually even 
anticipated the attacks of the fly. Wounds from bites are to 
be treated like other wounds exhibiting the same kind of 
injuries. 

Poisoned Wounds. — In the Mountain Shepherd's Manual 
it is stated that sheep in Europe are not unfrequently bitten 






382 SPRATNS BRUISES ABSCESS. 

by venomous snakes, and that when this occurs, " a spoonful 
of rape or olive oil should be given several times a day, or 
the same quantity of the solution of an ounce of volatile salt 
in two quarts of water." In France snakes have been 
thought to suck the milk of ewes, inflicting wounds in the 
teat which cause them to dry up permanently. * I have never 
seen or heard of a case of either kind in the United States ; 
and I attach no credit to the supposed snake-sucking in any 
part of the world. 

Sprains. — The mode of treating sprains recommended in 
the Mountain Shepherd's Manual is the only one I have ever 
heard of which was attended with any observable success. 
The limb is immediately immersed in hot water for half an 
hour, and this repeated several times a day. The cure is 
often rapid. 

Bruises and Strains, — Are treated on the sheep, if at 
all, with hot fomentations, and the application of camphor. 

Abscess. — I have never seen a case of this. Mr. Spooner 
says : — "Abscess, which is a collection of pus or matter under 
the skin, may be produced by a bruise, or by some constitutional 
cause. Whilst collecting, the surface of the skin is usually 
very tender, and sometimes there is also much constitutional 
irritation present. A collection of matter may be known by 
the heat, swelling and pain of the part. On pressing it the 
contained fluid is felt to fluctuate ; and the pi-essure being 
removed, the part immediately assumes its former shape, 
whilst a watery or dropsical swelling, on being pressed, 
leaves for some time the mai'ks of the fingers. After some 
time the abscess points ; that is, the matter can be more 
distinctly felt at one particular part, at which, if permitted, 
the abscess would soon burst. This, however, should not be 
permitted ; but at this stage the abscess should be opened at 
the lowest part, or that which would admit most readily of 
its discharging itself. The opening should be large, and no 
dressing will be required except the continuance of the 
fomentation, which should previously be used. It should be 
observed that, if the abscess is languid and slow in forming, 
a stimulant, such as hartshorn and oil, rubbed in occasionally, 
will be useful." 



* Mountain Shepherd's Manual, p. 8. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

MEDICINES USED IN THE TKEATMENT OP THE DIS- 
EASES OP SHEEP. 

The list of medicines below, comprises the principal ones 
employed in the treatment of the diseases of sheep. 

EXPLANATION OF MEDICAL TEEMS USED IN THIS CHAPTER. 

Absorbent. — A medicine used for absorbing acidity in the 
stomach and bowels. 

Anodyne. — A medicine which relieves pain. 

Antacid. — A remedy which «removes sourness in the 
stomach. 

Anthelmintic. — A remedy which destroys or expels 
worms. 

Antiseptic. — A preventive of putrefaction. 

Antispasmodic. — A preventive of spasms. 

Aperient. — A medicine which opens the bowels. 

Astringent. — A medicine externally that has the property 
of contracting organic textures, and internally of diminishing 
evacuation or dunging. 

Carminative. — A remedy which allays pain and causes 
the expulsion of flatus, or wind, from the body. 

Cathartic. — A medicine which causes an increase of 
evacuation or dunging. 

Caustic. — A body which has the power of burning or 
consuming flesh and other animal substances. 

Cordial. — A tonic medicine which excites the system and 
increases the rapidity of the circulation of the blood.. 

Diaphoretic. — A medicine which promotes perspiration 
or sweating, and a carrying off of the humors of the body 
through the pores of the skin. 

Disinfectant. — An agent which removes the causes of 
infection. 



384 MEDICAL TERMS MEDICINES. 

Diuretic. — A medicine which increases the discharge of 
urine. 

/luetic. — A substance capable of producing vomiting or 
puking. 

Emollient. — A substance which allays irritation and softens 
and relaxes parts that are inflamed, and swollen hard. 

Febrifuge. — A medicine which abates or drives away 
fever. 

Febrile. — Feverish. 

Laxative. — A medicine which loosens or opens the 
bowels. 

Lubricant. — A substance which makes the body to which 
it is applied soft and slippery. 

Narcotic. — A medicine which, by acting on the brain, 
relieves pain, allays morbid susceptibility, and produces sleep. 
In too large doses narcotics produce stupor and. death. 

Purgative. — A medicine which operates more powerfully 
in opening the bowels than a laxative. 

Rubefacient. — An application which produces redness or 
irritation of the skin. 

Sedative. — A medicine employed to depress unnaturally 
increased action of the vital forces, and thus quiet the system. 

Stimulant. — A medicine which has the power of exciting 
the action of the organs and the discharge of the functions of 
the animal system. 

Stomachic. — A medicine which strengthens the stomach 
and gives more activity to its functions. 

Sudorific. — A medicine that causes sweating. 

Tonic. — A medicine that gives increased strength and 
vigor to the action of the system. 

LIST OF MEDICINES. 

Alcohol, (Spirit of Wine). — Added in small quantities as 
a stimulant to purgatives, in low forms of disease. 

Ale. — Administered to sinking ewes before and after 
parturition, usually in doses of about a gill ; after long and 
exhausting parturition, it is mixed with two to four drachms 
of laudanum ; the dose repeated at intervals of three or four 
hours. Ale is sometimes given to chilled lambs. 

Aloes. — Occasionally used as a purgative; administered 
by some good shepherds in combination with oil for colic or 
stretches. But there are better cathartics for sheep. The 



LIST OF MEDICINES. 385 

tincture of aloes, says Mr. Youatt, " is a very useful, stimula- 
ting and healing external application to wounds. Two ounces 
of powdered aloes and a quarter of an ounce of powdered 
myrrh, should he macerated [soaked] in a pint of rectified 
spirit and diluted with an equal quantity of water." 

Alteratives. — Ethiop's mineral, (black sulphuret of 
mercury,) nitre and sulphur, compounded in the proportions 
of one, two and four, is useful in the cutaneous diseases of 
sheep. Average dose two drachms, administered daily. 

Alum — Is used in some astringent medicines, but is 
inferior to various other articles for this purpose. It is some- 
times employed in solution to bathe an inverted womb or a 
prolapsed rectum. (See page 145.) Burnt alum is used as a 
stimulant and caustic on wounds, but there are better ones. 

Ammonia — In the form of hartshorn, enters into various 
liniments, and some other medicines. It is an excellent 
external stimulant, and rubefacient. Internally it is an 
antacid and sudorific, but is not often thus used in sheep 
diseases. 

Anodynes. — Opium is chiefly employed for this purpose. 
The modes and times of its exhibition have been pointed out 
throughout this volume. 

Antimony, (the Chloride of Butyr of.") — By far the best 
caustic in advanced stages of hoof- rot. For the causes of 
its superiority, and for its mode of application, see page 370. 

Aqua-fortis. — See Nitric Acid. 

Arsenic. — Used in solution to kill ticks and cure scab. 
See pages 188, 341-343. 

Antispasmodics. — Opium is employed in the case of 
tetanus or locked-jaw, colic, etc. 

Astringents. — Opium (acting as an anodyne,) is chiefly 
relied on internally. Catechu frequently forms a part of 
medicines intended to have a slightly astringent effect. Alum 
is used in the form of alum whey — 2 drachms of pulverized 
alum dissolved in a pint of hot milk. The external astringents 
most used in sheep diseases are a solution of alum, or a 
decoction of white oak bark, burnt alum, bole Arminian, etc. 

Balls. — Medicine should never be administered in the 
form of balls to sheep. For the reasons see page 299. 

Blisters. — Not often resorted to in sheep practice. 
When used the hair or wool must be closely shaved, and the 
17 



386 LIST OF MEDICINES. 

parts well rubbed with an ointment composed of one part of 
powdered cantharides, four of lard, and one of resin. 

Bole Akminian. — An argillaceous earth used occasion- 
ally as a mild external astringent on wounds. Internally an 
astringent and absorbent. 

Boneset or Thoroughwort. — {Eupatoriumperfollaturn.) 
A good tonic and diaphoretic; in large doses emetic and 
aperient. A tea made of this is administered with excellent 
effect to lambs, under the circumstances stated at page 150. 

Calamine. — See Zinc. 

Calomel. — See Mercury. 

Camphor. — Used internally as a narcotic, diaphoretic and 
sedative. It is used externally, dissolved in alcohol, to reduce 
the swelling of the thyroid glands in the necks of lambs, (see 
page 153.) Dissolved in the same way, or in oil, it is applied 
to the udders of sheep having garget, (see page 331.) It is 
also used with good effect as an external stimulant in rheuma- 
tism, strains, bruises, swellings, swelling of the joints, &o. 

Cantharides. — The principal ingredient in blistering 
ointments. 

Carrawat Seed. — Given in doses of two or three 
drachms as a stomachic, with other medicines. 

Castor Oil. — A safe and excellent purgative, but not 
used as much as saline purgatives. 

Catechu. — A valuable astringent, in doses of half a 
drachm. It is one of the ingredients of the celebrated 
" sheep's cordial." 

Caustics. — Butyr of antimony, muriatic acid, sulphuric 
acid, nitric acid, blue vitriol, burnt alum, &c, &c. Blue 
vitriol is immeasurably the best application and mild caustic 
in the early stages of hoof- rot, as butyr of antimony is in 
later ones. (See Hoof- Rot.) 

Chalk, {Prepared) — By its alkaline properties, neutralizes 
the acidity of the stomach, and thus checks diarrhea. It is a 
very valuable remedy in doses from half an ounce to an 
ounce, given as directed under the head of " diarrhea." 
Mr. Spooner also recommends it as a useful external applica- 
tion to wounds and sores. 

Chamomile. — A mild tonic and febrifuge. Used externally 
in fomentations for wounds, ulcers, &c. 

Charges. — Thick adhesive plasters spread over parts that 



LIST OP MEDICINES. 387 

require support, and the application of a constant and moderate 
stimulus. They are placed on the shoulder of the sheep when 
the bones underneath are fractured. 

Clysters. — See Injections. 

Copper. — See Verdigris and Vitriol. 

Copperas. — See Sulphate of Iron. 

Cordial. — Sheep's cordial. An excellent remedy for 
Diarrhea. For mode of preparing it see page 307. 

Corrosive Sublimate (Bi-chloride of Mercury) — The 
most convenient form in which mercury can be administered 
internally. The proto-chloride, or calomel, from its great 
gravity, Could not, with any certainty, be made to reach the 
fourth stomach. It would seem that mercury should be a 
useful remedy in several of the diseases of sheep. Corrosive 
sublimate dissolved in alcohol is an excellent application 
to old and ill-conditioned wounds or ulcers. It is very 
effectual in destroying maggots in wounds and in repelling 
the attacks of the fly. 

Croton Seeds or Oil — A very powerful and rapid 
purgative rarely resorted to in the diseases of sheep. Dose, 
says Mr. Spooner, from 5 to 15 drops of the oil. It is some- 
times applied externally, sufficiently reduced, in glandular and 
and other indolent swellings. 

Digitalis (Fox-glove) — A sedative, and it lowers the 
frequency of the pulse. It enters into most of the fever 
medicines of the English veterinarians. Dose, 1 scruple. 

Elder — The ointment of, has been once or twice 
mentioned in this volume. It is made by boiling elder leaves 
in lard, and forms one of the most softening and soothing 
applications known for inflamed and irritated surfaces. 

Epsom Salts (Sulphate of Magnesia) — In doses from half 
an ounce to one, and in some few cases two ounces, the best 
purgative which can, in almost every disease, be administered 
to sheep. 

Fomentations — To reduce swellings, lessen inflammation 
and relieve pain in inflamed udder, garget, and various 
other cases, these are invaluable. They are applied by 
dipping a woolen cloth constantly in hot water — as hot as 
can possibly be endured by the hand — and laying or gently 
pressing it on the parts. To be effectual, fomentations must 
be continued a long time ; and the part should be left covered 



388 LIST OP MEDICINES. 

if practicable, particularly in cold weather, or cold may be- 
taken in it, and the original difficulty only aggravated. 

( ; i;vn an — The best vegetable tonic in use. Dose from 1 
to 2 drachms. 

< ! i v — Given in doses of half a teaspoonful to a teaspoonful 
in warm milk to chilled lambs, with admirable effect. I 
omitted to mention, when speaking of the mode of procuring 
the adoption of a foster lamb, that gin rubbed on the nose of 
the ewe and sprinkled over the lamb, promotes that object. 

Ginger. — A highly useful cordial and stomachic, given 
with most aperient medicines to prevent griping. Dose from 
half a drachm to two drachms. 

Hartshorn. — See Ammonia. 

Injections. — These are of the utmost importance to 
relieve constipation in lambs. For their composition, and the 
mode of administering them, see page 150. 

Iodine. — The hydriodate of potash in the proportion of 
one part to seven or eight parts, by weight, of lard, consti- 
tutes an ointment which is a powerful stimulant to the 
absorbing vessels, and therefore is an excellent application to 
glandular swellings, or to indu-rated tumors. It is a good 
application to swelled udder, (garget,) or to enlarged thyroid 
glands. (See Goitre and Garget.) 

Lard — A gentle purgative in doses of two ounces. The 
basis of most ointments, and applied externally in almost 
every case as an emollient and lubricant in the place of oils. 

Laudanum. — See Opium. 

Lead (Acetate or Sugar of Lead) — Mixed with other 
ingredients to form caustic applications in hoof -rot. 

Lead (White) — Is used in cooling and drying ointment. 
Lime (Carbonate of) — See Chalk. 

Lime (Chloride of) — Is a powerful disinfectant and 
antiseptic. It is used to disinfect and purify stables, &c, in 
which contagious diseases have occurred, and to clean the 
foot and remove stench in the worst stages of hoof- rot. It 
is administered internally for hoove. (See Hoove.) 

Linseed — Or flax-seed, is invaluable as an emollient 
poultice. It forms an excellent gruel for animals during 
illness. 



LIST OF MEDICINES. 389 

Linseed Oil — In closes of two ounces is a safe purgative 
where the intestines are irritated. Ordinarily it is not so 
efficient as Epsom salts. 

Magnesia (Sulphate of) — See Epsom salts. 

Mercury. — Mercurial ointment is used as an application 
for scab, and also to kill ticks. For the mode of compound- 
ing, see pages 189, 342. 

Mercury (Proto-Chloride of, or Calomel) — It is not much 
used in diseases of sheep. (See pages 322, 323, 378.) 

Mercury (Bi-Chloride of.) — See Corrosive Sublimate. 

Muriatic Acid (Spirit of Salt) — Next to chloride of 
antimony, the best caustic in the worst stages of hoof- rot. 

Myrrh. — A stinfulant tonic, used in applications to 
wounds. (See under Aloes.) 

Nitrate of Silver, (Lunar Caustic) — Is the best super- 
ficial caustic, but is far too expensive to be used on ordinary 
occasions. In one place, however, it is indispensable — in the 
bites of rabid animals, or where their saliva is brought in 
contact with surfaces denuded of skin. It has not yet been 
shown that the saliva of the rabid sheep will communicate 
that dreadful disease, but the opposite fact is not positively 
established. Some of the sheep, an account of which is given 
at pages 283-290, had been handled by laborers, after becoming 
rabid, and the saliva might have come in contact with their 
hands ; and one of the Messrs. Freer, whose sheep were bitten 
at the same time, not suspecting the nature of the malady, 
sponged out the mouth of an animal in the last stages of 
rabies ! On examining his hands the skin was found slightly 
fractured in several places. Whatever might have been the 
result, it relieved some painful anxieties to see his hands, and 
those of my son's laborers, well and thoroughly cauterized 
with lunar caustic, so as to form a thick black eschar or scab 
wherever there was the least break in the skin. Mr. Youatt, 
who probably had more experience with rabies than any man 
who ever lived, considered immediate and thorough cauteri- 
zation, by nitrate of silver, of the wounded or exposed parts 
— to the very bottom of the the tooth holes in case of bites — 
a perfect protection against the virus of rabies. 

Nitre, or Salt-Petre, (Nitrate of Potash) — In doses of 
a drachm or two, enters into every fever medicine. It is 
cooling, diuretic, and diaphoretic. Externally it is a powerful 
antiseptic. 



390 LIST OF MEDICINES. 

Nitric Acid (Aqua-fortis) — Sometimes used as a substi- 
tute for chloride of antimony, or muriatic acid, as a caustic in 
hoof-rot. Used by drovers also to harden the soles of sheep's 
feet which have become thin and tender by traveling. It is 
touched over the soles with a feather. 

Olive Oil (Sweet Oil) — Is used in many external applica- 
tions, and sometimes internally as a laxative; but for the last 
purpose is inferior to the other oils given as cathartics, and to 
Epsom salts. 

Opium — As an antispasmodic, sedative and astringent it 
stands unrivaled. Mr. Youatt remarks : — " A colic drink 
would have little effect without it; and if opium were omitted 
in the medicines for diarrhea and dysentery, every other drug 
would be given in vain." In the form of gum the dose is 
about 10 grains; in the form of laudanum, from 1 to 2 
drachms. 

Pepper (Black) — Given pulverized, in doses of half a 
teaspoonful in warm milk, to chilled lambs. It is a warm 
carminative stimulant, and is capable of producing general 
arterial excitement. 

Pimento (Allspice) — A substitute for ginger in the same 
doses, but not as valuable. 

Pumpkin Seeds — A tea of, is an excellent diuretic for 
very young lambs, when their urine does not pass with 
sufficient freedom. 

Rhubarb — Unites the properties of a cathartic and 
subsequent astringent. In small doses, it is a tonic and 
stomachic, invigorating the digestion. When the bowels are 
relaxed and torpid, and the stomach in a feeble state, it would 
seem the most appropriate purgative, when a purgative is 
required. 

Rye, ( Ergot of) — A powerful stimulant to the womb — 
resorted to in England in very protracted lambing. Mr. 
Spooner says the dose is one scruple infused in hot Avater, and 
repeated if required in the course of one or two hours. 

Spirits. — Brandy, rum, whisky, etc., may be made a 
substitute for gin for chilled lambs. See Gin. 

Salt, (Muriate of Soda.) — An ounce constitutes a light 
purgative ; in small quantities a tonic and stomachic. The 



LIST OF MEDICINES. 391 

necessity of keeping sheep freely supplied with salt has been 
referred to under Summer and Winter Management. For 
its great efficacy in Rot, see page 378. 

Salt-Petre. — See Nitre. 

Setons. — The mode of inserting these is pointed out at 
page 348. 

Spirit of Nitrous Ether, (Sweet Spirit of Nitre.) — In 
doses of two drachms ; a valuable diaphorectic, diuretic and 
anti-spasmodic. It is much used in fibrile affections. 

Sulphate of Copper. — See Blue Vitriol. 

Sulphur. — Internally an aperient in doses from one to 
two ounces. Externally it forms the basis of ointments used 
in various cutaneous diseases. 

Sulphuric Ether. — A powerful stimulant and anti-spas- 
modic. Dose one drachm. 

Sulphuric Acid. — A powerful caustic, used alone, or in 
combination with other ingredients, in advanced stages of 
hoof- rot. 

Sulphate of Iron, (Copperas or Green Vitriol.) — Used 
in hoof- rot remedies, but much less valuable for that purpose 
than blue vitriol. Internally a tonic. 

Spirit of Tar — Destroys maggots, and prevents the fly 
from depositing its eggs in ulcers or wounds. 

Tar — Is an impure turpentine, but it contains several 
distinct principles, of which creosote is one. Internally it is 
stimulant, diuretic, anthelmintic, and in large doses is laxative. 
Externally it is a stimulant, produces a good effect on foul or 
indolent ulcers, and repels attacks of the fly. It is also 
resorted to as a mechanical coating for the feet, &c, when 
denuded of their natural coverings, in order to retain other 
applications underneath, keep out water, &c 

Tobacco. — A decoction of it kills the acarus of scab, and 
thus cures that disorder. It also kills ticks, lice, &c. An 
injection of it, or the smoke of it blown into the nostrils, causes 
the larvae of the the Gad-fly to be dislodged from the cavities 
of the head. Altogether it is a most valuable sheep medicine, 
and every sheep farmer should cultivate it in his garden for 
that purpose. Tobacco ointment, made by boiling an ounce 



392 LIST OF MEDICINES. 

of fresh tobacco leaves cut fine, in a pound of lard over a 
gentle fire until it becomes friable, would be an admirable 
application on irritable ulcers of the foot or other parts. 

Turpentine (Spirits of) — Has about the same internal 
and external effect with tar ; but it lacks the creosote, which 
may render it a little less effective on old ulcers. (See Tar.) 

Verdigris (Acetate of Copper) — Often used in hoof- rot 
in combination with blue vitriol. Its medicinal properties are 
very similar, and I doubt whether it forms any useful addition 
to the former in such cases. 

Zinc (Carbonate of) — Mixed with lard, constitutes a 
valuable emollient and healing ointment. It is mixed in the 
proportion of one part of the carbonate, by weight, to eight 
of lead. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 
THE DOG IN ITS CONNECTION WITH SHEEP. 

THE INJURIES INFLICTED BY DOGS ON SHEEP THE SHEEP 

DOG THE SPANISH SHEEP DOG THE HUNGARIAN SHEEP 

DOG THE FRENCH SHEEP DOG THE MEXICAN SHEEP 

DOG THE SOUTH AMERICAN SHEEP DOG OTHER LARGE 

RACES OF SHEEP DOGS THE ENGLISH SHEEP DOG THE 

SCOTCH SHEEP DOG, OR COLLEY ACCUSTOMING SHEEP TO 

DOGS. 

The Dog is justly a favorite animal with man, and I 
cannot deny that I have written some prose heroics in his 
praise.* But on the whole, on summing up the advantages 
and disadvantages which he produces to mankind — and 
especially to sheep growers — there can be no doubt that the 
balance is enormously against him. 

The Injuries Inflicted by Dogs on Sheep. — I had 
purposed to collect some statistics of the annual injuries 
inflicted on sheep by dogs in the State of my residence, 
(New York,) but I found them already prepared to my hand 
in reference to the State of Ohio — which will answer equally 
well for the purposes of illustration — over the signature of 
the able and efficient Corresponding Secretary of the Ohio 
State Board of Agriculture, John H. Klippart, Esq. I need 
not say that his name is an ample guaranty of the accuracy of 
his statements. I cut the paper from a recent number of the 
Ohio Farmer. Mr. Klippart says : 

"In 1858, the Legislature of Ohio enacted a law making 
it the duty of the Township Assessors to return a list of the 
sheep killed and wounded by dogs, in every township in the 
State. From the annual returns we are now obtaining data 
from which to estimate the amount of damage done by dogs 

* In Sheep Husbandry in the South. 

17* 



394 INJURIES INFLICTED BY DOGS. 

to the wool-growing interest. Last winter the Legislature 
enacted a law requiring the Assessors to return a list of all 
the dogs in their respective townships or wards. Up to the 
present time I have returns from eighty counties — eight 
counties having failed to make returns ; but the returns from 
the eighty counties furnish sufficient data ' to do some 
figuring.' 

"Eighty counties return 162,933 dogs, or nearly 2,037 
dogs per county ; if the remaining eight counties, viz.: Allen, 
Ashland, Fulton, Licking, Mahoning, Montgomery, Noble 
and Putnam, maintain the same average, the complete returns 
will then show 179,256 dogs in Ohio! This will give 44- 
dogs to every square mile in the State, 1 dog to every 13 
inhabitants in the State. We have a population of 58 inhab- 
itants to the square mile. 

"In 1860 the Legislature of Rhode Island appropriated the 
requisite sum of money to enable the United States Marshal 
to collect some special statistics of that State, among which 
was dogs; the number returned by the Marshal was 6,854 
dogs. Rhode Island has 1,306 square miles of territory, 
173,869 inhabitants. This gives 5£ dogs to every square 
mile, or more than 1 dog to every 25 inhabitants, whilst there 
are 133 inhabitants to the square mile. 

" The probabilities are that not more than half the dogs 
in Ohio have been returned to the Assessors. Many instances 
have come to my knowledge, where parties preferred killing 
the dogs to paying taxes on them, and the dogs were 
accordingly destroyed. In the city of Columbus, one ward 
returns three dogs only ; but private information assures me 
of more than forty in the same ward. Franklin county 
returns 2,167 dogs, whilst well informed parties assert that, 
there are more than that number in the city of Columbus. 
It is safe to assume that there are at least 200,000 dogs in the 
State. 

" What does it cost to keep (feed) these dogs ? In towns 
and cities it will be no exaggeration to value the food consumed 
by dogs at fifty cents each per week, or twenty-six dollars 
per annum ; it is worth just as much in the country or on the 
farm to keep a dog, but their food can be procured cheaper 
there, and is worth at the lowest estimate ten dollars per 
annum. If we estimate the cost of keeping the dogs in the 
State at the town rate, the figures show that the cost of 
keeping them is five millions of dollars, but if we take the 
country rate it will amount to two millions of dollars — these 



INJURIES -INFLICTED BY DOGS. 395 

are the two extremes, the truth lies in the middle, because 
there are fully as many dogs in cities, towns and villages, as 
there are in the country. Therefore the amount expended 
for food for dogs in Ohio, is worth annually the sum of three 
and a half millions of dollars, or more than three-fourths the 
total amount of State taxes for the years 1861 or 1862, and 
just the amount of State taxes for I860! Reflect for a 
moment on this fact, that if the amount of food consumed by 
the dogs in the State in a single year were properly disposed 
of, the sum obtained for it would pay the State taxes ! 
How despei'ately some people complain at the amount of 
taxes, yet none complain of the cost of keeping a dog. 
Aside from the expense of keeping dogs, they have killed 
and injured sheep in 

1858, to the amount of $146,758 

1859, " " 102,398 

1860, " " 86,795 

1861, " " 87,092 

1862, " " about 85,000 

Total in five years, 508,043 

Annual average, 101,608 

"There are then $100,000 worth of sheep killed and 
injured every year by dogs ; and this has been going on ever 
since sheep were in the State. In 1846, sheep were first 
enumerated and valued for taxation; in that year the number 
in the State was 3,141,946. In 1862, the number was 
4,448,227, an increase of 1,306,281, or 4l£ per cent, in 16 
years. In this same period of time, the number of swine has 
more than doubled, cattle have just doubled, and horses not 
quite doubled. Were it not for the destruction of sheep by 
dogs, Ohio would to-day have ten million head of sheep; but 
when sheep growers are compelled to pay an annual tax of 
$100,000 to $150,000, according to the caprice of worthless 
dogs, aside from the regular township and county tax, it is 
no wonder that they become discouraged, invest their surplus 
capital in Western lands, and thus let the productive interests 
of the State suffer. There is no kind of doubt that the dogs 
have annually destroyed $100,000 worth of sheep from 1846 
to the present time, or an aggregate of $1,700,000, and to 
what purpose ? Who has been benefited by this destruction 
of sheep? Nobodv ! When the lightning strikes clown one 
of the ' monarchs of the forest,' or destroys a house and kills 
some ofthe inmates, the benefits in health and continuation 
of life to those remaining is still of greater benefit, than the 
loss incurred is a damage. The explosion of the electric fluid 



3DG THE SHEEP DOG. 

purities the atmosphere, and is a guarantee for the continu- 
ance of health; "whereas if "we had no electrical phenomenon, 
the air would become very impure, and epidemics or other 
diseases engendered by the impurity, would destroy vastly 
more lives than the lightning does. But, in the destruction 
of sheep by dogs, there is no benefit or advantage of any 
kind arising to anybody. 

"Finally, are dogs of as much benefit to the State in the 
aggregate as they cost? What this cost is I have endeavored 
to show, and if any person will show me that they are worth 
what they cost, I "will be much obliged to him for his pains. 

" It is no argument to say that the food would have been 
lost at all events — and that it costs nothing to keep a dog ; 
a hog will eat all the refuse from the kitchen, and drink the 
swill besides, and pays for its keeping in good fat pork and 
lard, or if taken to market commands cash. In fact I know 
several instances where poor men grow rich by keeping hogs, 
and other instances where men, comparatively well off, grew 
poorer by keeping dogs." 

And now per contra ! 

The Sheep Dog. — Buffon thus eloquently describes the 
sheep-dog, and compares his sagacity and value to man, with 
other races: — "This animal, faithful to man, will always 
preserve a portion of his empire and a degree of superiority 
over other beings. He reigns at the head of his flock, and 
makes himself better understood than the voice of the shepherd. 
Safety, order and discipline are the fruits of his vigilance 
and instinct. They are a people submitted to his management, 
whom he conducts and protects, and against whom he never 
applies force but for the preservation of good order. * 
If we consider that this animal, notwithstanding his ugliness, 
and his wild and melancholy look, is superior in instinct to all 
others; that he has a decided chrracter in which education 
has comparatively little share ; that he is the only animal 
born perfectly trained for the service of others ; that, guided 
by natural powers alone, he applies himself to the care of our 
flocks, a duty which he executes with singular assiduity, 
vigilance, and fidelity ; that he conducts them with an 
admirable intelligence, "which is apart and portion of himself; 
that his sagacity astonishes at the same time that it, gives 
repose to his master, while it requires groat time and trouble 
to instruct other dogs for the purposes to which they are 
destined ; if we reflect on these facts, we shall be confirmed 



THE SPANISH SHEEP DOG. 



397 



in the opinion that the shepherd's dog is the true dog of 
Nature, the stock and model of the whole species." 

I shall call attention to but a few of the most distinguished 
varieties of the sheep dog. 




ARROGANTE A SPANISH SHEEP DOG. 

The Spanish Sheep Dog. — The cut above affords a faithful 
representation of a thorough-bred Spanish Sheep Dog imported 
with a flock of Merino sheep a number of years since into 
England. 

Soon after Arrogante's arrival in England, a ewe under 
his charge chanced to get cast in a ditch, during the tempo- 
rary absence of the Spanish shepherd, who had accompanied 
the flock and dog at their importation. An English shepherd, 
in a spirit of vaunting, insisted on relieving the fallen sheep, 
iu preference to having the absent shepherd called, though 
warned by his companions to desist. The stern stranger dog 
met him at the gate and also warned him with sullen growls, 
growing more menacing as he approached the sheep. The 
shepherd was a powerful and bold man, and felt that it was 



398 THE SPANISH SHKKI- DOG. 

too late now to retract with credit. On reaching the slice] >, 
he bent carefully forward, with his eyes on the dog, which 
instantly made a spring at his throat. A quick forward 
movement of his arm saved his throat, but the arm was so 
dreadfully lacerated that immediate amputation became 
necessary. To save the dog, which had but done his duty, 
as he had been taught it, from the popular excitement, he was 
shipped in a vessel which sailed that very afternoon, from 
Bristol for America. He Avas sent to Francis Kotch, Esq., 
then a resident of New-Bedford, Massachusetts. 

Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when I was writing " Sheep 
Husbandry in the South," Mr. Rotch wrote to me as follows: 

" I have, as you desired, made you a sketch of the Spanish 
sheep dog Arrogante, and a villainous looking rascal he is. 
A worse countenance I hardly ever saw on a dog. His small, 
blood-shot eyes, set close together, give him that sinister, 
wolfish look, which is most unattractive ; but his countenance 
is indicative of his character. There w T as nothing affectionate 
or joyous about him. He never forgave an injury or an 
insult ; offend him, and it was for life. I have often been 
struck with his resemblance to his nation. He was proud 
and reserved in the extreme, but not quarrelsome. Every 
little cur would fly out at him, as at some strange animal ; 
and I have seen them fasten for a moment on his heavy, 
bushy tail, and yet he would stride on, never breaking his 
long, ' loping,' shambling trot. Once I saw him turn, and 
the retribution was awful ! It was upon a large, powerful 
mastiff we kept as a night-guard in the Bank. He then put 
forth his strength, which proved tremendous ! His coat hung 
about him in thick, loose, matted folds, dirty and uncared-for 
— so that I presume a dog never got hold of anything about 
him deeper than his thick, tough skin, which was twice too 
large to fit him anywhere, and especially around the neck and 
shoulders. The only other evidence of his uncommon 
strength which* I had observed, was the perfect ease with 
which he threw himself over a high wall or paling, which 
often drew my attention, because he seemed to me wanting 
in that particular physical development Avhich we are accus- 
tomed to consider as necessary to muscular power. He was 
flat-chested, and flat-sided, with a somewhat long back and 
narrow loin. (My drawing foreshortens his length.) His 
neck, forearm and thigh certainly indicated strength. If the 
Spanish wolf and the dog ever cohabit, he most assuredly 
had in him such a cross ; the very effluvia of the animal 



THE SPANISH SHEEP DOG. 399 

betrayed it. In all in which he differed from the beautiful 
Spanish shepherd dog, he was wolfish, both in form and habits. 
But, though no parlor beauty, Arrogante was unquestionably 
a dog of immense value to the mountain shepherd. Several 
times he had met the large wolf of the Appenines, and 
without aid slain his antagonist. The shepherds who bred 
him said it was an affair of no doubtful issue, when he 
encountered a wolf single-handed. His history, after reach- 
ing England, you know." 

I have been unable to procure any new portrait, known to 
be authentic, of a dog of this breed. The American editor 
of Mr. Youatt's work on the Dog, (Dr. Lewis,) states the 
Spanish sheep dog " is of the same breed " as the great 
Alpine Spaniel or " Bernardine dog " which is employed by 
the monks of St. Bernard in rescuing travelers among the 
storms and avalanches of the Alps. I have seen several of 
these, and Arrogante resembles them as nearly as can a spare, 
attenuated, ugly man resemble one of massive proportions 
and noble countenance — the height, length, contour, loose 
hide, etc., are the same.* But while I strongly incline to 
credit Dr. Lewis' assertion^ of the identity of the breeds, I 
have not felt authorized to give a portrait of a Swiss dog as 
characteristic of a race of Spanish dogs. 

Arrogante proved himself an animal of immense value. 
Dull, almost stupid, and apparently sleeping much of the clay, 
nothing, however, escaped his observation, or was subse- 
quently erased from his memory. If led round a building, or 
inclosure, or even an open space, at night-fall, in a manner 
to evince particular design, during the entire night like a 
sentinel he traversed some part of the guarded ring, permit- 
ting neither man nor beast to pass in or out from it. When 
miserable curs intruded on his charge, they were slain in 
an instant. He possessed almost human intelligence in 
protecting property of every kind belonging to_ his master. 
But, though never the aggressor, the terrible vindictiveness 
of his temper, when injured, finally cost him his life. 

Mr. Trimmer, in his work on the Merinos, thus describes 
the mode of employing the Spanish Sheep Dog : — " There is 
no driving of the flocks ; that is a practice entirely unkilown ; 
but the shepherd, when he wishes to remove his sheep, calls 
to him a tame wether accustomed to feed from his hands. 



* The cut of the Bernardine dog, in Mr. Youatt's work, represents a magnificent 
animal— but the kind of resemblance I have named between it and Arrogante 
plainly exists. 



400 THE HUNGARIAN SHEEP DOG. 

The favorite, however distant, obeys his calls and the rest 
follow. One or more of the dogs, with large collars armed 
with spikes, in order to protect them from the wolves, precede 
the flock, others skirt it on each side, and some bring up the 
rear. If a sheep be ill or lame, or lag behind unobserved by 
the shepherds, they stay with it and defend it until some one 
returns in search of it. With us, dogs are often used for 
other and worse purposes. In open, uninclosed districts they 
are indispensable, but in others, I wish them, I confess, either 
managed or encouraged less. If a sheep commits a fault in 
the sight of an intemperate shepherd, or accidentally offends 
him, it is dogged into obedience, the signal is given, the dog 
obeys the mandate, and the poor sheep flies round the field to 
escape from the fangs of him who should be his protector, 
until it becomes half dead with fright and exhaustion, while 
the trembling flock crowd together dreading the same fate, 
and the churl exults in this cowardly victory over a weak 
and defenceless animal." 

Mr. John Hare Powell, in the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania 
Agricultural Society, describes some Spanish dogs, imported 
with the early Merinos into this country, and then .owned by 
himself, as possessing " all the valuable characteristics of the 
English shepherd's dog, with sagacity, fidelity and strength 
peculiar to themselves." He adds : — " Their ferocity when 
aroused by au) r intruder, their attachment to their own flock, 
and devotion to their master, would, in the uncultivated parts 
of America, make them an acquisition of infinite value, by 
affording a defence against wolves, which they ready kill, and 
Migrant cur dogs, by which our flocks are often destroyed. 
The force of their instinctive attachment to sheep, and their 
resolution in attacking every dog which passes near to their 
charge^ have been forcibly evinced upon my farm."* 

The Hungarian Sheep Dog. — The following description 
of the Hungarian Sheep Dog, occurs in Paget's " Hungary 
and Transylvania."! — " It would be unjust to quit the subject 
of the Puszta Shepherd without making due and honorable 
mention of his constant companion and friend, the juhasz- 
hutya — the Hungarian shepherd dog. The shepherd dog is 

* Mr. Powell's paper is copied into Memoirs of the Board of Agriculture of the 
Stale of New York, Vol. .'!, Is-Jli. With it is an illustration of a Spanish Sheep Dog, 
which looks like a cross between a cur and a hull-dog. Hut it is so completely out of 
drawing that I am led to infer that it was drawn by a wholly incompetent artist and 
that it Dears no resemblance to the original. 

t Hungary and Transylvania, by John Paget, Esq., Vol. 2, p. 12, et. seq. 



FRENCH AND MEXICAN SHEEP DOGS. 401 

commonly white, sometimes inclined to a reddish brown, and 
about the size of our Newfoundland dog. His sharp nose, 
short erect ears, shaggy coat, and bushy tail give him much 
the appearance of a wolf; indeed, so great is the resemblance, 
that I have known a Hungarian gentleman mistake a wolf for 
one of his own dogs. Except to their masters, they are so 
savage that it is unsafe for a stranger to enter the court - yard 
of a Hungarian cottage without arms. I speak from experi- 
ence ; for as I was walking through the yard of a post-house, 
where some of these dogs were lying about, apparently 
asleep, one of them crept after me, and inflicted a severe 
wound on my leg, of which I still bear the marks. Before 
I could turn round, the dog was already far off; for, like the 
wolf, they bite by snapping, but never hang to the object like 
the bull - dog or mastiff. Their sagacity in driving and 
guarding the sheep and cattle, and their courage in protecting 
them from wolves and robbers, are highly praised ; and the 
shepherd is so well aware of the value of a good one, that 
it is difficult to induce him to part with it." 

I have little doubt that the Hungarian dogs above de- 
scribed are the descendants of the Spanish ones, introduced 
into Hungary with the Merino sheep, though possibly they 
may be somewhat crossed by inter-breeding with the dogs 
of the country. 

French Sheep Dog. — Professor Grognier gives the 
following account of this breed : — " The Shepherd's Dog, the 
least removed from the natural type of the dog, is of a middle 
size ; his ears short and straight ; the hair long, principally on 
the tail, and of a dark color ; the tail is carried horizontally 
or a little elevated. He is very indifferent to caresses, 
possessed of much intelligence and activity to discharge the 
duties was designed. In one or other of its varieties it is 
found in every part of France. Sometimes there is but a 
single breed, in others there are several varieties. It lives 
and maintains its proper characteristics, while other races 
often degenerate. Everywhere it preserves its proper dis- 
tinguishing type. It is the servant of man, while other breeds 
vary with a thousand circumstances. It has one appropriate 
mission, and that it discharges in the most admirable way : 
there is evidently a kind and wise design in this." 

The Mexican Sheep Dog. — The following account of 
these noble dogs appears as a communication from Mr. J. H. 



402 THE MEXICAN SHEEP DOG. 

Lyman, in the third volume of the American Agriculturist : 
" Although Mr. Kendall and some other writers have 
described this wonderful animal as a cross of the Newfound- 
land dog, such, I think, cannot be the fact: on the contrary, 
I have no doubt he is a genuine descendant of the Alpine 
mastiff, or more properly Spanish shepherd dog, introduced 
by tliem at the time of the Conquest. He is only to be found 
in the sheep-raising disti - icts of New Mexico. The other 
Mexican dogs, which number more than a thousand to one of 
these noble animals, are the results of a cross of everything 
under the sun having any affinity to the canine race, and even 
of a still nobler class of animals if Mexican stories are to 
be credited. It is believed in Mexico, that the countless 
mongrels of that country owe their origin to the assistance 
of the various kinds of wolves, mountain cats, lynxes, and to 
almost if not every class of four-footed carnivorous animals. 
Be this as it may, those who have not seen them can believe 
as much as they like ; but eye-witnesses can assert, that there 
never was a country blessed with a greater and more abundant 
variety of miserable, snarling, cowardly packs, than the 
mongrel dogs of Mexico. That country of a surety would 
be the plague-spot of this beautiful world, were it not for 
the redeeming character of the truly noble shepherd dog, 
endowed as it is with almost human intellect. I have often 
thought, when observing the sagacity of this animal, that it' 
very many of the human race possessed one-half of the power 
of inductive reasoning which seems to be the gift of this- 
animal, that it would be far better for themselves and for 
their fellow creatur.es. 

" The peculiar education of these dogs is one of the most 
important and interesting steps pursued by the shepherd. 
His method is to select from a multitude of pups a few of the 
healthiest and finest-looking, and to put them to a sucking 
ewe, first depriving her of her own lamb. By force, as well 
as from natural desire she has to be relived of the contents 
of her udder, she soon learns to look upon the little interlopers 
with all the affection she would manifest for her own natural 
offspring. For the first few days the pups are kept in the 
hut, the ewe suckling them morning and evening only ; but 
gradually, as she becomes accustomed to their sight, she is 
allowed to run in a small inclosure with them until she 
becomes so perfectly familiar with their appearance as to 
take the entire charge of them. After this they are folded 
with the whole flock for a fortnight or so, they then run about 



THE MEXICAN SHEEP DOG. 403 

during the day with the flock, which after a while becomes 
so accustomed to them as to be able to distinguish them from 
other dogs — even from those of the same litter which have 
not been nursed among them. The shepherds usually allow 
the slut to keep one of a litter for her own particular benefit ; 
the balance are generally destroyed. 

" After the pups are weaned, they never leave the 
particular drove among which they have been reared. Not 
even the voice of their master can entice them beyond sight 
of the flock ; neither hunger nor thirst can do it. I have been 
credibly informed of an instance where a single dog having 
charge of a small flock of sheep was allowed to wander with 
them about the mountains, while the shepherd returned to his 
village for a few days, having perfect confidence in the ability 
of his dog to look after the flock during his absence, but with 
a strange want of foresight as to the provision of the dog for 
his food. Upon his return to the flock, he found it several 
miles from where left, but but on the road leading to the vil- 
lage, and the poor, faithful animal in the agonies of death, 
dying of starvation, even in the midst of plenty y yet the 
flock had not been harmed by him. A reciprocal affection 
exists between them which may put to blush many of the 
human family. The poor dog recognized them only as 
brothers and dearly loved friends ; he was ready at all times 
to lay down his life for them ; to attack not only wolves and 
mountain cats, with the confidence of victory, but even the 
bear, when there could be no hope. Of late years, when the 
shepherds of New Mexico have suffered so much from Indian 
marauders, instances have frequently occurred where the dog 
has not hesitated to attack his human foes, and although 
transfixed with arrows, his indomitable courage and faithful- 
ness have been such as to compel his. assailants to pin him to 
the earth with spears, and hold him there until dispatched 
with stones. 

" In the above instance the starving dog could have 
helped himself to one of his little brother lambs, or could 
have deserted the sheep, and very soon have reached the 
settlements where there was food for him. But faithful even 
unto death, he would neither leave nor molest them, but 
followed the promptings of his instinct to lead into the settle- 
ment ; their unconsciousness of his wants and slow motions 
in traveling were too much for his exhausting strength. 

" These shepherds are very nomadic in character. They 
are constantly moving about, their camp equipage consisting 



404 THE MEXICAN SHEEP DOG. 

merely of a kettle and a bag of meal ; their lodges are made 
in a few minutes, of branches, &C., thrown against cross-sticks. 
They very seldom go out in the day-time with their flocks, 
intrusting them entirely with their dogs, which faithfully 
return them at night, never permitting any stragglers behind 
or lost. Sometimes diflerent flocks are brought into the same 
neighborhood owing to scarcity of grass, when the wonderful 
instincts of the shepherds' dogs are most beautifully displayed; 
and to my astonishment, Avho have been an eye-witness of such 
scenes, if two flocks approach within a few yards of each 
other, their respective propi'ietors will place themselves in the 
space between them, and as" is very naturally the case, if any 
adventurous sheep should endeavor to cross over to visit her 
neighbors, her dog protector kindly but firmly leads her baek, 
and it sometimes happens, if many make a rush and succeed 
in joining the other flock, the dogs under whose charge they 
are, go over and bring them all out, but, strange to say, under 
such circumstances they are never opposed by the other dogs. 
They approach the strange sheep only to prevent their own 
from leaving the flock, though they offer no assistance in 
expelling the other sheep. But they never permit sheep not 
under canine protection, nor dogs not in charge of sheep, to 
approach them. Even the same dogs which are so freely 
permitted to enter their flocks in search of their own, are 
driven away with ignominy if they presume to approach 
them without that laudable object in view. 

" Many anecdotes could be related of the wonderful 
instinct of these dogs. I very much doubt if there are 
shepherd dogs in any other part of the world except Spain, 
equal to those of New Mexico in value. The famed Scotch 
and English dogs sink into insignificance by the side of them. 
Their superiority may be owing to the peculiar mode of 
rearing them, but they are certainly very noble animals, 
naturally of large size, and highly deserving to be introduced 
into the United States. A pair of them will easily kill a 
wolf, and flocks under their care need not fear any common 
enemy to be found in our country." 

Mr. Kendall speaks of " meeting, on the Grand Prairie, 
a flock numbering seventeen thousand, which immense herd 
was guarded by a very few men, assisted by a large number 
of noble dogs, which appeared gifted with the faculty of 
keeping them together. There was no running about, no 
barking or biting in their system of tactics ; on the contrary, 
they were continually walking up and down, like faithful 



SOUTH AMERICAN SHEEP DOG. 405 

sentinels, on the other side of the flock, and should any sheep 
chance to stray from its fellows, the dog on duty at that 
particular post, would walk gently up, take him carefully hy 
the ear anfl. lead him back to the flock. Not the least fear 
did the sheep manifest at the approach of these dogs, and 
there was no occasion for it." 

Capt. Allison Nelson, of Bosque county, Texas, visited 
me in 1860. He had started to bring me a pair of these 
Mexican dogs, but unfortunately permitted himself "to be 
laughed out of it" — his friends being under the impression 
that it would be carrying coals to New Castle to take sheep 
dogs to a region where the Scotch colley was to be found in 
abundance. Capt. Nelson confirmed Mr. Lyman's statement 
in regard to "their sagacity and courage. His sheep were 
herded in the Mexican way, around fires and not in folds. 
He said that after night-fall the dogs separated themselves 
from the sheep and formed a cordon of sentries and pickets 
around them, — Jand woe to the wolf that approached too near 
the guarded circle ! The dogs crouched silently until he was 
within striking distance, and then sprang forward like arrows 
from so many bows. Some made straight for the wolf and 
some took a direction to cut off his retreat to forest or 
chaparral. When overtaken his shrift was a short one. 

Such dogs would be invaluable on the broad prairies of 
the North-western States, to save the labor, trouble, and 
sometimes injury of folding flocks each night in a stationary 
and distant fold. 

South American Sheep Dog. — Similar to the preceding 
in character and habits, are the sheep dogs to be found in 
various parts of South America. They, too, are undoubtedly 
an ofishoot from the Spanish stem. The following interesting 
account of them is from Darwin's Journal : 

" While staying at this estancia (in Banda Oriental,) I was 
amused with what I saw and heard of the shepherd dogs of 
the country. When riding it is a common thing to meet a 
large flock of sheep guarded by one or two dogs, at the 
distance of some miles from any house or man. I often 
wondered how so firm a friendship had been established. 
The method of education consists in separating the puppy, 
when very young, from the bitch, and in accustoming it to 
its future companions. A ewe is held three or four times 
a day for the little thing to suck, and a nest of wool is made 
for it in the sheep -pen. At no time is it allowed to associate 



40fi SOUTH AMERICAN AND OTHER SHEEP DOGS. 

with other dogs, or with the children of the family. The 
puppy, moreover, is generally castrated: so that when grown 
up, it can scarcely have any feelings in common with the rest 
of its kind. From this education it has no wish to leave 
the flock, and just as another dog will defend its master, 
man, so will these the sheep. It is amusing to observe, 
when approaching a flock, how the dog immediately advances 
harking — and the sheep all close in his rear as if around the 
oldest ram. These dogs are also easily taught to bring home 
the flock at a certain time in the evening. Their most 
troublesome fault when young is their desire of playing with 
the sheep, for in their play, they sometimes gallop their poor 
subjects most unmercifully. The shepherd dog comes to 
the house every day for some meat, and immediately it is 
given to him he skulks away as if ashamed of himself. On 
these occasions the house dogs are very tyrannical, and the 
least of them will attack and pursue the stranger. The minute, 
however, the latter has reached the flock, he turns round and 
begins to bark, and then all the house dogs take very quickly 
to their heels. In a similar manner a whole pack of hungry 
wild dogs will scarcely ever (and I was told by some, never,) 
venture to attack a flock guarded even by one of these faithful 
shepherds. The whole account appears to me a curious 
instance of the pliability of the affections of the dog race ; 
and yet, whether wild, or however educated, with a mutual 
feeling of respect and fear for those that are fulfilling their 
instinct of association. For we can understand on no 
principle the wild dogs being driven away by the single one 
with its flock,- except that they consider, from some confused 
notion, that the one thus associated gains power, as it' in 
company with its own kind. F. Cuvier has observed that all 
animals which enter into domestication consider man as a 
member of their society, and thus they fulfill their instinct of 
association. In the above case the shepherd dogs rank the 
sheep as their brethren ; and the wild dogs, though know- 
ing that the individual sheep are not dogs, but are good to 
eat, yet partly consent to this view, when seeing them in a 
flock, with a shepherd dog at their head." 

Other Large Races of Sheep Dogs. — There are one 
or two fine species in France, as those of Brie and Auvergne. 
In a letter from G. W. Lafayette, to John S. Skinner, Esq., 
the latter are pronounced equal to Spanish dogs.* Large, 

* See Farmers' Library, Vol. I, p. 465. 



THE ENGLISH SHEEP DOG. 



407 



powerful races, possessing the same general characteristics, 
are to be found in almost every country excepting our own, 
where the fine-wooled breeds of sheep have been extensively 
introduced. With a commerce extending to all the mari- 
time nations of the world, it is singular that so little pains 
have been taken to introduce them. 

The English Sheep Dog. — The following cut presents 
an accurate portrait of an animal of this breed, imported by 
Mr. B. Gates, of Gap Grove, Lee county, Illinois. It is taken 
from The Farmer's Library: 




drover's dog. 

The Drover's Dog, or English Sheep Dog, or Butcher's 
Dog — for by all these different names is he known — is thus 
described by Mr. Theodore C. Peters, of Darien, New York, 
in third volume of the American Agriculturist, 1844 : 

" I purchased a bitch of the tailless species, known as the 
English drover dog, in Smithfield market, some two years 
ago. That species is much used upon the downs, and is a 
larger and fleeter dog than the Colley. We raised two litters 
from her, got by Jack, [a Colley,] and I think the cross will 



408 TITE SCOTCH SHEEP DOG. 

make a very valuable dog for all the purposes of the farmer. 
They learn easily, are very active, and so far they fully answer 
our expectations. 

"A neighbor to whom we gave a bitch of the first litter, 
would tell her to go into such a lot and see if there w r ere any 
stray cattle there ; and if there were any there, detect them 
and drive them down to the house. He kept his cattle in the 
lot, and it was full eighty rods from the house. The dog was 
not then a year old. We had one of the same litter, which 
we learned to go after cows so well, that we had only to tell 
him it was time to bring the cows, and he would set off for 
them from any part of the farm, and bring them into the 
yard as well as a boy. I think they would be^invaluable to a 
farmer on the prairies. After raising two litters, we sent the 
bitch to Illinois. I hope farmers will take more pains in 
getting the shepherd dog. There is no difficulty in training. 
Our old one we obtained when a pup, and trained him without 
any trouble, and without the help of another dog. Any 
man who has patience, and any dog knowledge at all, can 
train one of this breed to do all that he can desire of a dog." 

The Scotch Sheep Dog or Collet. — The light, active, 
sagacious Colley admits of no superior — scarcely an equal — 
where it is his business merely to manage his flock, and not 
to defend them from beasts larger than himself. Mr. Hogg 
says that a "single shepherd and his dog will accomplish 
more in gathering a flock of sheep from a Highland farm than 
twenty shepherds could do without dogs. Neither hunger, 
fatigue, nor the worst treatment will drive him from his 
master's side, and he will follow him through every hardship 
without murmur or repining." 

The same well known writer, in a letter in Blackwood's 
Magazine, gives a most glowing description of the qualities 
of his Colley, " Sirrah." One night a flock of lambs, under 
his care, frightened at something, made what we call in 
America a regular stampede, scattering over the hills in 
several different bodies. " Sirrah," exclaimed Hogg in 
despair, "they're a' awa!" The dog dashed off through 
the darkness. After spending with his assistants the whole 
night in a fruitless search after the fugitives, Mr. Hogg 
commenced his return to his master's house. Coming to a 
deep ravine, they found Sirrah in charge, as they first 
supposed, of one of the scattered divisions, but what was 



THE COLLET. 



409 



their joyful surprise to find that not a lamb of the whole 
flock was missing;! 




IP? 

THE COLLET. 



Mr. Peters, in the same paper from which we have just 
quoted, thus speaks of the Colley : — " I think the shepherd 
dog the most valuable of his species, certainly for the farmer. 
Our dog Jack, a thorough-bred Scotch Colley, has been worth 
$100 a year in managing our small flock of sheep, usually 
about seven hundred in number. He has saved us more than 
that in time in running after them. After sheep have been 
once broken in by, and become used to the dog, it is but 
little trouble to manage them ; one man and the dog will 
do more than five men in driving, yarding, &c. Let any 
man once possess a good dog, he will never do withotit one 
again. 

" The sagacity of the shepherd's dog is wonderful ; and if 

I had not seen so much myself, I could hardly credit all we 

read about them. It is but a few days since I was reading 

in a Scotch paper a wonderful performance of one of these 

18 



410 THE COLLEY A DRAWBACK. 

Colley dogs. It seems the master of the bitch purchased at 
a fair some eighty sheep, and having occasion to stay a day 
longer, sent them forward and directed his faithful Colley to 
drive them home, a distance of about seventeen miles. The 
poor bitch when a few miles on the road dropped two whelps; 
but faithful to her charge, she drove the sheep a mile or two 
farther — then allowing them to stop, she returned for her 
pups, which, she carried some two miles in advance of the 
sheep, and thus she continued to do, alternately carrying her 
own young ones, and taking charge of the flock, till she 
reached home. The manner of her acting on this occasion 
was gathered by the shepherd from various persons who had 
observed her on the road. On reaching and delivering her 
charge, it was found the two pups were dead. In this 
extremity the instinct of the poor brute was yet more remark- 
able ; for, going immediately to a rabbit brae in the vicinity, 
she dug out of the earth two young rabbits, which she deposited 
on some straw in a barn, and continued to suckle them for 
some time, until they were unluckily killed by one of the farm 
tenants. It should be mentioned that the next day she set off 
to the place where she left her master, whom she met 
returning when about thirteen miles from home." 

I have to make a sad draw-back on these statements. It is 
well known in the region of New York where I reside, and 
where the Colley dog is quite common, that it is sometimes — 
under the instruction of vicious associates perhaps — taught 
in its youth to kill sheep : and when this occurs, it is pro- 
verbial that the sheep has no other so fell and destructive 
canine enemy. Its extreme activity, and the keenness of its 
bite, causes a wholesale slaughter. Two dogs of this kind 
killed eight Merino ewes for me this year, and had they not 
fortunately been detected at the outset of their attack, they 
would soon probably have added fifty to the number of their 
victims. When first seen they were darting about, biting 
one sheep after another — a single touch of their teeth being 
apparently sufficient to strip off half the skin — as if they 
were committing the havoc solely for their amusement, and 
were prompted neither by hunger nor thirst. Indeed, I 
ascertained from their owners that they had both been well 
fed within an hour of the time of their entering the flock. 
They were moreover habitually well fed dogs, and were in 
excellent case. I think the mongrel Colley learns to kill 
sheep as readily as a cur ; but whether this is true of the pure 
blood dog, I am not prepared to say. 



ACCUSTOMING TIIE SHEEP TO TOE DOG. 411 

Accustoming the Sheep to the Dog. — It is a mistake 
to suppose that a trained sheep dog will manage any strange 
flock, however wild and unaccustomed to such company. 
The sheep must be gradually made acquainted with, and 
accustomed to, the dog. They must know — and they will 
readily learn it — that he is their friend, their guardian and 
protector, instead of that hereditary enemy which their 
instinct teaches them to fly from. A want of knowledge of 
this fact has frequently led to disappointment and disgust, to 
a giving up of the valuable dog which it has cost pains and 
money to procure. My friend, the late Col. John S. Skinner, 
related to me a ludicrous accident which befel President 
Jefferson, or rather his sheep dogs, when he undertook to 
show off some newly imported ones, a la philosopher, 
without being apprized of the above-mentioned fact. 
The tale is told in my Sheep Husbandry in the South. The 
comedy turns on the fact that the great political sage took 
out some admiring visitors to witness the wonderful exploits 
of his dogs: "let" them "slip" on some raw ovine subjects, 
whereupon the latter dashed themselves over precipices, &c. : 
and the " valuable dog which it had cost pains and money to 
procure," Was so mortified at the proceeding that he ran the 
other way, was never again heard of, and is supposed by 
some to be running to this day ! 

As in the case of so many " good stories," there was not 
a word of truth in it ! Some years after my publication of it, 
I chanced to be in conversation with Mr. Jefferson's family 
on this very subject and learned that the dogs were sent to 
him from France — that they were admirably broken and 
possessed almost human intelligence — that neither of them 
ever brought man or beast to grief, except that the bitch, 
who took it upon herself to herd the hens every night, insisted 
on doing it about half an hour before the latter wished to 
retire for the night — and they sometimes made loud com- 
plaints on the subject! 



APPENDICES. 



APPENDIX A — (page 122.) 
OKIGIN OF THE IMPEOVED ItfFANTADOS. 

To gratify the curiosity of some thorough - paced Merino sheep 
breeders, as well as to illustrate the rapid "march of improvement," 
when the right animals are bred together, I will present a few facts 
culled from a large body of notes in my possession, giving full 
descriptions of the leading animals named in the pedigrees on page 
121, and in the remainder of Mr. Hammond's flock. 

" Old Black," was bought of S. Atwood, by Mr. Sanford. of Orwell, 
and was owned and used by him and Mr. Hammond together. He 
weighed about 135 lbs., and yielded about 14 lbs. of wool. (Unless other- 
wise stated, all fleeces named here will be understood to be unwashed.) He 
was long, tall, flat-ribbed, rather long in the neck and head, strong-boned, 
a little roach - backed, deep - chested, moderately wrinkled : his wool 
was about 1-J inches long, of medium thickness, extremely yolky, and 
dark colored externally : lace a little bare, and not much wool on shanks. 
He did not possess a very strong constitution. He proved an admirable 
sire of ewes, but was not so good for rams. 

"Old Matchless" run well into the blood of Mr. Atwood's lighter 
colored sub-family, though he himself was darkish colored. (Mr. Atwo< -d 
had either found two such sub-families in the Humphreys' sheep, or he 
had gradually created and established them in his flock to attain certain 
breeding objects : I think the latter was the case.) He weighed about 
150 lbs., was a sheep of excellent form, commanding appearance, and 
strong constitution. He yielded lOf lbs. of wool when a lamb, but his 
usual fleece afterwards was only 12 or 13 lbs. His fleece was about two 
inches long, coarsish, of medium thickness, pretty yolky — but thin and 
short on the belly. He was not well covered on the head, and was bare 
on the shanks. He got large, strong, but not very well covered lambs. 
He was not as good a stock ram as Old Black. He died early. 

"Wooster" weighed about 100 lbs. He was well shaped and 
compact, with short legs, a short, thick head, and neck of medium 
length and thickness. He was very heavily wrinkled under the neck, 
and also at the elbow and tail. His wool was nearly two inches long, quite 
thick, very dark and yolky. He was well covered on belly and foretop, 
and middling well on the face. He yielded 19| lbs. of wool at two years 
old. He was an excellent stock getter, and bred extremely well with 



APPENDIX A. 413 

the light colored ewes. He sold a lamb for $300, but Mr. H. continued 
to use him. (See page 113.) 

" Old Greasy" weighed about 110 lbs. He was light boned and rather 
long and thin in eveiy part, though the rib was tolerably full. He was 
but little wrinkled, having simply the cross on the brisket, the convolu- 
tion of skin under the chops called by many " the double," and a narrow 
dewlap between them. He was exceedingly yolky, and his wool veiy 
long and thick for so yolky a sheep. The wool was about 2J inches long, 
was fine and even, covered belly and foretop fairly, but not the shanks, 
a ml the fleece weighed 22 lbs. His constitution was medium, and he was 
an excellent stock getter, so far as fleece was concerned. He was used 
to darken the produce of the light colored ewes. 

"Old "Wrinkly" weighed from 125 to 130 lbs., and was a strong- 
boned, low, compact sheep, with round carcass and short legs, short 
thick head and neck, but was a little too light in the hips. He was very 
heavily wrinkled over and under neck, and also about elbow, tail, thigh 
and flank. His flank was deep and tail broad. His fleece was thick, 
about two inches long, of medium quality, not entirely even, and 
showed a little jar on the neck wrinkles. He was well covered on head 
and belly, and wooled to the foot. His fleece weighed 23 lbs. It was 
rather light colored, though very yolky. His yolk was yellow. The wool 
opened well. He had a strong constitution, and was a good sire ram. 
He was sold for $300. 

"Little Wrinkly" weighed about 110 lbs. He had bones of good 
size, was about medium in respect to compactness, and was round in 
the rib. He was much less wrinkly than Old Wrinkly, and was inferior 
to him in general appearance. His fleece was very fine and even, and 
possessed a good deal of style. It was of medium length, (two inches 
long,) thick, and coated with dark external gum. He was as yolky as 
Old Greasy, and his yolk white. His fleece weighed about 19£ lbs., a 
good deal of weight considering its quality. He would not have been 
\ised had Long Wool or Old Greasy been alive ; yet he proved a good 
stock ram, in some cases, getting Sweepstakes and two large, very 
heavy fleeced ewes. He got them when a lamb. He died at three. 

" Sweepstakes " weighs about 140 lbs. Taken all in all he is about as 
perfect a formed Merino ram as was ever seen, and defective in no 
essential particular. His wool is 2£ inches long, fine, extremely even, and 
does not contain a particle of jar. His belly, head, etc., are admirably 
covered, and he is wooled profusely to the feet all round. He has no 
external gum, is medium in point of color, but possesses abundance of 
thin, yellowish yolk. His wool opens brilliantly and with a beautiful 
style. He has produced a single year's fleece of 27 lbs. His constitution 
is powerful. He impresses his own characteristics unusually strongly 
on his get. He took the first premium of the Vermont State Agricultu- 
ral Society as a lamb, as a yearling, and as a grown ram. In 1861 he met 
several of the best rams of the State (the best of his competitors were 
got by himself) in a sweepstakes, and was victorious. Mr. Hammond 
has been several times offered $2,500 for him. 

" California," the next named ram in the pedigree published at page 
121, was the property of Henry Hammond, as is his dam Beauty 1st. 
(His stock is the same with that of his uncle, Edwin Hammond, 
being half of the same common flock.) California was sold for $1,000, 
and 1 think was less than a year old when sold. I have no descrip- 



414 APPENDIX A. 

tion of him. His dam brings to him and to Gold Drop the blood 
(individual blood) of several very celebrated animals which do not 
appear in tbe pedigree of Sweepstakes, viz., Young Matchless, the 
Lawrence Ewe, Long Wool and Old Queen. 

"Young Matchless" was in the light colored line. He weighed 
about 150 lbs. He was a model of strength, compactness, symmetry 
and showincss. He had immense constitution. He was well wrinkled 
under the neck, at the elbow, thigh and tail. His fleece was about 2i 
inches long, extremely thick, of medium quality, of good style, even and 
had no jar. It covered him well on belly, head, legs, etc. He was 
particularly well wooled over the eye. He was rather light colored. He 
was less yolky than any ram heretofore described, and his yolk was white. 
His fleece weighed 23 lbs., and is believed to have contained more pure 
wool than that of any other ram Mr. Hammond ever owned except 
Sweepstakes. He gave his get great length and thickness of wool, and 
the great round carcass so conspicuous in the flock. He took the first 
State premium, &c. A half interest in him and Greasy was sold to 
Wm. 11. Sanford for $500. 

"The Lawrence Ewe" combined the size, beauty, constitutional 
vigor and wooliness of both her sire and dam. She weighed about 110 
lbs., and did not lack a single property of excellence or showiness. 
She was dark externally, yolk yellowish, and had some external gum. 
Her fleece was of good quality, and weighed 14 lbs. She was sold for 
$600, which was esteemed a remarkable price at that day. She was the 
dam of two very famous rams, viz., Long Wool and the Lawrence Ram. 

"Long Wool" took something of his form from his sire, and accord- 
ingly was not as low, compact and round as his immediate maternal 
ancestors, but he was considerably better formed than Old Greasy. He 
weighed from 125 to 130 lbs. His wrinkles, &c, resembled his* sire's, 
but he had more of them, and some small ones about elbow and tail. 
His fleece was about 2$ inches long, very thick, yolk wliite and brilliant, 
style excellent. He was wooled to the feet all round, well wooled on 
the belly and head. He wa3 not quite as well wooled over eye as 
Young Matchless or the Queen familv — but did more to improve this 
point among the Queens than any other ram. His fleece was dark 
colored. No memorandum is preserved of its weight: it was over 20 
lbs. He was an admirable sire for ewe lambs — the best, perhaps, Mr. 
H. ever had. They were long and thick wooled, dark externally, and 
particularly well covered. He improved the flock, especially in 
wool over the eye. His lambs were also low, rouud, thick and of 
strong constitution. Mr. H. declined $500 for him when two years old. 
He was killed early, in fighting. 

" The Lawrence Ram is not named in the pedigrees, published on 
page 121, but has been one of the most celebrated rams of the flock. He 
was got by Old Wrinkly, dam, the Lawrence ewe. He weighed about 130 
lbs. He was a short, stout, heavy-boned, low sheep, with a remarkably 
short and heavy neck, and a broad loin and rump. He had a powerful 
constitution. He was heavily wrinkled in front, with folds at elbow, 
tail, thigh and flank. He was dark colored and yolky. His wool was of 
medium length, (two inches,) very thick, of medium quality, even, and 
the yolk yellowish. He was well covered on face, belly, &c. His fleece 
weighed 24 lbs. He was a capital sire for both ram and ewe lambs. 
The heaviest fleeced ewes now in Mr. H.'s flock were got by him. He 
was sold in his old age for $200. 



APPENDIX A. 415 

"Old Queen" is but two removes from the "First Choice of Old 
Ewes," and is considered by her owner the mother of more valuable 
sheep than any other ewe ever owned by him. 

"First Choice of Old Ewes" was of the medium size of Atwood 
ewes of that day, weighing about 80 lbs. She was fine in the bone, of 
about medium length, with a short, wide head. Her general form was 
compact, and good, with the exception of a slight flatness in the ribs. 
She was but little wrinkled, having only the cross and double with a 
dewlap between. Her wool was hardly two inches long, but was fine, 
even, thick, dark, and well filled with white yolk. It covered her well on 
belly, but she was bare on the forehead compared with the sheep of the 
present flock, and had not much below the knees. Her washed fleece 
weighed about five pounds. She proved an extraordinary breeder, 
and her line — the "dark or Queen line" — has always been carefully 
preserved. 

The "Light Colored Ewe" weighed 85 or 90 lbs. She was shortish, 
very square built, with a short, thick head and neck, medium length of 
leg, and rounder ribs than most of the Atwood sheep. She was high 
headed, had the cross and double with dewlap between and under the 
chops. Her wool was about 2£ inches long, veiy thick, and covered her 
well on the face and belly. She was wooled to the foot. Her fleece was 
even but not very fine. It was light colored and rather destitute of yolk. 
Her fleece weighed about six lbs. washed. She was an excellent breeder, 
but not regarded as equal to the First Choice of Old Ewes, in this 
particular. She was the origin of the " light colored line," always pre- 
served in the flock to interbreed with the " dark or Queen line." 

"First Choice of Ewe Lambs," at maturity, weighed from 90 lbs. 
to 95 lbs. She was strong boned, low, short, and thick in every part 
except the neck, which was slightly too long and thin. Her ribs were 
well arched. She had the cross on the brisket, but no double or dewlap, 
and was smooth under the chops. She was regarded, however, as the 
best formed sheep, on the whole, bought of Mr. Atwood, and also the 
best covered one. She was well wooled on the belly, head and shanks. 
Her fleece was about two inches long, dark externally, and well filled 
with white yolk. Crossed in the Queen line, she produced "Wooster : 
crossed in the light colored line, she produced the Lawrence ewe. She 
died early. Her blood was lost to the flock by the sale of Wooster and 
the Lawrence ewe — but brought back by Mr. Hammond's putting ewes 
to the Wooster ram, and by his subsequently re-purchasing the Law- 
rence ram. 

I have not space here to follow out the course of breeding between 
the three lines which has led to such extraordinary improvement. The 
best sheep of the flock have always been produced by interbreeding 
between them. The mode in which Sweepstakes unites the three strains 
will be seen from his pedigree at page 121. "21 per Cent.," so often 
named in this work, unites them through some of the most celebrated 
animals of each line. He was got by the Lawrence ram; dam, Old 
Tulip, an own sister of Old Queen. The " Thousand Dollar Ram" now 
owned by Mr. Asahel F. Wilcox, of Fayetteville, New York, was got by 
Sweepstakes out of Old Queen's dam. " Wrinkly 3d," now owned by 
Capt. Davis Cossit, Onondaga, New York, was got by Sweepstakes, 
dam, Countess, by Little Wrinkly — Countess' dam in the light colored 
line, &c, &c. 

The first great change in Mr. Hammond's weight of fleeces was made 



416 APPEXDIX B. 

by Young Matchless; and he equally improved the form, size and 
constitution. His only deficiency was in yolk, and consequently in dark 
. and bis get resembled him in that particular. 

" Old Greasy" and "Long Wool," and particularly the latter, made a 
marked improvement in the fleece. They added materially to its 
yolkiness, and consequently to its dark, external color, without either 
shortening it or rendering it thinner; and they also added to its fineness 
and style. They both gave better forms to their progeny than their own, 
but Old Greasy's get were sometimes deficient in this particular. Long 
"Wool did not deteriorate the form, particularly in his female get. Old 
Greasy gave a good, and Long Wool an excellent, constitution to his 
descendants. 

" Old Wrinkly" rendered the flock more stocky, and "wrinkly, and 
shorter in the legs, head, &c. 

The "Lawrence ram" got large, strong, round carcassed, and well- 
formed offspring — possessing a remarkable constitution. His get on 
ewes by Greasy and Long Wool were as dark colored as their dams, and 
had heavier fleeces. 

" Sweepstakes " has done much to harmonize the different strains of 
blood and give uniformity to the flock — improving defects where they 
existed. In the external color of their wool, he, 21 per Cent., and the 
Thousand Dollar Earn, are about midway between the light and dark 
colored lines — the point where weight of fleece and bodily development 
are best combined. 



APPENDIX B — (page 128.) 

ORIGIN OF THE IMPROVED PAULARS. 

The following is a full, and it is believed, accurate account of 
the crosses of blood contained in some of the principal improved 
Paular stocks of the present day, with such notices as I could obtain of 
the leading animals in the establishment of the crossed family : 

In 1844, Judge M. W. C. Wright, of Shoreham, Vermont, bought a 
ram bred by Mr. Stephen Atwood, and brought by him to the New 
York State Fair, held that year at Poughkeepsie. Mr. Hammond, of 
Vermont, and myself, were present at the purchase. My recollections 
of him entirely coincide with those of Judge Wright, and his subsequent 
owners, Messrs. Elithorp and Remelee. He did not weigh, with bis 
fleece off, to exceed 100 lbs. " He was," Mr. Elithorp writes me, " a low, 
short-legged, square-built sheep, short-bodied, short and rather heavy- 
necked, with a few moderate-sized folds about the neck, and a brace or 
fold [of pendulous skin] extending from his hind-leg to his flank. He 
was flat on the back, had a deep chest, and possessed a good constitu- 
tion." His fleece w r as fine, glossy, even, highly crimped, thick and " long 
for an Atwood sheep in those days." It covered his head and belly 
unusually well, and extended to his hoofs, "making his legs look short 
and heavy." His yolk was abundant, entirely fluid, and white in color ; 
and his external color was very dark for a sheep unhoused in summer. 



APPENDIX B. 417 

His fleece in 1845, of two years' growth, weighed 22 lbs. unwashed ; his 
subsequent fleeces ranged from 13 lbs. to 15 lbs., and averaged about 14 
lbs. He was an admirable sire ram with ewes of all descriptions, stamp- 
ing his individual characteristics strongly on his progeny. 

On his return with this sheep to Vermont, Judge Wright sold him 
to Prosper Elithorp, of Bridport, and Loyal C. Eemelee, of Shoreham, 
after reserving to himself the use of him for a certain period that fall ; 
and he also used him in part for two succeeding years. He was thence- 
forth called the " Atwood ram." He got the "Elithorp ram" out of a 
ewe bred by Mr. Remelee, and sold by him to Mr. Elithorp. This ewe 
was got by Judge Wright's " Black Hawk," out of a pure Jarvis ewe 
purchased by Mr. Remelee of Mr. Jarvis. The dam and grand-dam of 
the Elithorp ram, writes Mr. Elithorp, "were essentially Jarvis sheep 
in their appearance, except that they carried darker coats on the outside, 
and their wool was thicker set. It was long, fine, splendid wool. They 
were good shaped and hardy for Jarvis stock." The Elithorp ram 
" weighed from 130 to 140 lbs., in good condition : was formed consider- 
ably like his sire except that he was more leggy; his wool was long and 
fine, resembling the Jarvis wool, except in its mode of opening, which 
was not in ringlets, but in flakes up and down." It " covered him well, 
was not yolky to excess, was heavy for those days, but its precise weight 
is not remembered." He was also an excellent stock ram. Judge 
Wright's Black Hawk was got by "Fortune" out of a pure Jarvis ewe 
purchased by Judge W. of Mr. Jarvis. " Fortune " was bred by Tyler 
Stickney, of Shcreham, and got by "Consul" out of a pure Paular 
(Rich) ewe. Consul was a pure Jarvis ram purchased by Mr. Stickney 
of Mr. Jarvis. Black Hawk, Fortune, (for a long time owned by S. W. 
Jewett,) and Consul, were all highly celebrated animals in their day, 
the two first especially. Fortune was sold for a higher price than any 
ram. of his day. His' dam was an exceedingly choice animal. 

Mr. Elithorp sold the Elithorp ram, then a lamb, in the fall of 1845, 
to Erastus Robinson, of Shoreham, Vermont. While owned by Mr. 
Robinson, he got the " Old Robinson ram " out of a ewe bred by Mr. 
Elithorp, and sold by him with 29 others to Mr. Robinson in the spring 
of 1848. This ewe was got by the Atwood ram, above mentioned, out of 
a pure Paular (Rich,) ewe bred by Mr. Robinson and sold by him to Mr. 
Elithorp in the fall of 1843. She was the second choice of Mr. R.'s flock. 
" She (the grand dam of the Old Robinson ram,) was a model in every 
particular that constitutes a good sheep, except size, which was below 
medium, and she had quite short legs." Her daughter (the dam of the 
Old Robinson ram) was a counterpart of her, except that she was a good 
size larger." Both " were heavy shearers, yielding from 8 lbs. to 9 lbs. 
each of white, glossy wool. They were peculiar for heavy eaps on their 
foreheads, short, bull-dog noses, thick ears, and very short necks. They 
had no short wool on their noses or ears, but were coated on these parts 
with white glossy hair." The Old Robinson ram " partook of the strong 
characteristic points of his dam " in carcass, " while his fleece was more 
of the Atwood stamp. His legs, like those of his dam and grand dam, were 
very short." Judge Wright describes him as " a small ram, (weighing 
about 100 lbs.,) low in the leg, with a heavy neck and a large and 
deep chest, covered with large folds or corrugations from his head to his 
tail. His wool was of medium length, compact, almost too fine, and 
covered him to the hoofs. He partook of many of the qualities of his 
18* 



418 APPENDIX C. 

grand-sire, the Atwood rum: he had a large amonnt of yolk; it was 
cream v, and of course his fleece partook of that color in the inside. On 
the outside it was quite dark." When five years old, says David 
Cutting, who sheared him that year, he yielded 11 lbs. 11 oz. of wool. 
Mr. Stickney, who purchased him of his brother-in-law, Mr. Robinson, in 
about 1855, and who was familiar with him all his life, informed Judge 
Wright " that he was very uniform in his weight of fleece, and that its 
average weight was about 14 lbs." (unwashed.) 

This ram, in the hands of Mr. Robinson and Mr. Stickney, got an 
immense number of lambs, which were very strongly marked with his 
own characteristics. They were generally small, short, and exceedingly 
compact, with fine, yolky, and for those times, heavy fleeces. They 
became great favorites, and sold far and near under the name of the 
"Robinson stock." This was an obvious misnomer, as Mr. Robinson, 
(a valuable man and intelligent breeder,) was not the founder of either 
of the three American families which constituted the new family, or the 
originator of the cross that produced it. Messrs. Robinson and Stickney 
commenced their original flocks with prime Rich sheep, purchased from a 
member of that family. In 1845, Mr. Robinson bred 20, and in 184G, 23 
of his ewes to the Atwood ram, owned by Mr. Elithorp. In the spring 
of 1848 he bought 30 ewes of Mr. Elithorp, "a majority of which were 
Atwood and a cross of Atwood and Rich — with some Jarvis blood in a 
small number of them." These are believed to be nearly as many as 
the other ewes then owned by him ; and he thenceforth bred the flocks 
together, using first the Elithorp ram, and the Old Robinson ram when 
he became old enough, with them. The flock at Mr. Robinson's death 
contained about an equal amount of Paular (Rich) and Iitfantado 
(Atwood) blood, and it was very celebrated for its excellence. The 
Stickney branch of the family contained a larger proportion of the 
Paular blood. The old Rich flock proper was crossed somewhat with 
the Atwood blood, as I have mentioned while describing them. 

Mr. Elithorp, from whom I have derived most of the above account 
of his own and Mr. Robinson's flocks, is, by the common voice of his 
fellow-citizens, a judicious breeder and excellent judge of sheep. And 
his candor and integrity are wholly above suspicion. 



APPENDIX C — (page 242.) 
ENGLISH EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING SHEEP. 

The following accounts of further experiments in feeding sheep are 
selected from Mr. T. E. Pawlett's already cited Essay on the Manage- 
ment of Sheep, which received the commendation of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England. Mr. Pawlett says: 

" The following experiments were all made with sheep of the 
Leicester breed; and before I proceed further (that I may not be 
misunderstood, as some of my statements may appear surprising to 
those unaccustomed to make experiments and weigh sheep,) I shall 



APPENDIX C. 



419 



state the weight of Swedes, &c., &c., sheep and lambs will daily 
consume ; also the live weight they will generally gain in four weeks, 
according to their age and season of the year. I am enabled to do this 
without much fear of contradiction, as I have been in the habit of 
regularly weighing my sheep and lambs nearly every month for more 
than twenty years. 

An ewe lamb -hog in the month of February will eat of cut 

Swedes in twenty - four hours, about 18 lbs. 

A wether lamb - hog 20 

A ram lamb - hog 22 

A shearling wether- 22 

A feeding or breeding ewe 24 

A sucking ewe 28 

A ram above two years old 30 

— no other food but cut Swedes being given to them : but if the weather 
is mild or warm they will not eat so much as I have stated by about 
one-fourth. If corn or oil-cake, or any other dry food is used, they will 
consume less turnips in proportion to the quantity given. I have 
found that by giving sheep one pint of beans each per day, they will 
not require so many Swedes by about five lbs. or six lbs. each. 

" Lambs and sheep managed and fed well, if in small lots, will gain 
in live weight each on the average per month : 



Young lambs in the month 

of April 9 

May 16 

June 18 

July 15 

August 12 

September 12 



lbs. 



Lambs in the month of 

October 12 lbs. 

November 8 

December 6 

January 5 

February 7 

March 10 



— being about 130 lbs., in twelve months, of live weight, or about 84 lbs. 
of mutton. Some lambs will, however, greatly exceed in gain the 
weights that I have stated. * * * * * 

" In carrying out these experiments, I was obliged, for the most part, 
to keep them in small yards, a system which I am generally opposed 
to (for any length of time ;) believing that sheep and all other animals 
ought, as far as regards situation, to be kept in a state as near approach- 
ing to that which nature assigned for them as possible, provided always 
that their lair be kept clean and dry, and shelter allowed them from 
the cold winds. When yards must be used for sheep, they ought always 
to be kept tolerably free from manure, well littered, and to have plenty 
of fresh air. 

" Experiment No. 1. — In the month of March, 1845, 1 selected twelve 
couples from the flock; the lambs being then about a fortnight old. 
These were divided into two lots, as equally as well could be with 
respect to the condition of the young lambs, and put into two separate 
small yards. Six of them were fed on clover-hay chaff entirely ; the 
other six couples had 140 lbs. of cut Swedes, and half a peck of beans 
daily ; both lots having water. At the end of the trial of about a month, 
the lambs of each were carefully compared ; and those certainly looked 
the best and most thriving whose dams had been fed only on clover-hay 
chaff. 



420 APPENDIX C. 

The six ewes fed on cut Swedes, ate 140 lbs., or 1 J cwt. every day, d. 

at 6d. per cwt., cost per week each 8$d. 

Also, half a peck of beans daily for the six ewes, at 4s. per 

bushel, cost each per week, 7d ; making the cost of keeping 

each ewe per week 15$ 

The six ewes fed on clover-hay chaff only, ate daily 21 lbs., or 3£ 

lbs. each, at 6d. per stone, or £4 per tun, cost per head per 

week 10J 

********* 

"Experiment No. 2. — Being desirous to prove further the value of 
clover-hay chaff for ewes and lambs, I again selected twelve couples 
from the flock, and divided them ecmally into two lots ; they were also 
put into separate small yards. On the 3d of April, 1845, the lambs 
being weighed alive : 

Six couples were fed on 9 lbs. of bran daily, which cost per head d. 
for each ewe per week, 5$d. ; they had also 15 lbs. of clover- 
Iny chaff daily at Od. per stone, cost each ewe per week 7-kl., 
making the total cost of keeping each couple per week 13 

The other six couples were fed on clover-hay chaff only, aud ate 

31 lbs. each ewe per day, at 6d. per stone, cost 101 

All the lambs were weighed again on the 17th of April, and 
the result was as follows : 

Six lambs, whose dams were fed on clover-hay chaff and bran, lbs. 

gained each on the average in 14 days 6 

Six lambs, whose dams were fed on clover-hay chaff only, gained 

in the same time 4J 

A difference is here shown of l£ lb. of live weight per lamb in favor of 
the use of bran, but when the cost of it is taken into consideration there 
does not appear to be much advantage in the use of it. 

"Experiment No. 3. — Mangel Wurzel against Swedes. — March 11th, 
1846, 1 drew 12 couples from the flock, the lambs being about a month 
old ; these were divided fairly into two lots, and put into separate yards ; 
six of them were fed on mangel wurzel cut and put into troughs, with a 
little hay-chaff; the other six couples were fed on cut Swedes, with a 
little hay-chaff also ; they were all weighed alive when put in on the 
11th of March, and again on the 2d of April, when I found the following 
result : 

Lambs gained each Ewes lost in 
on the average in the same 

twenty-two days. time. 

Couples fed on yellow globe mangel lbs. lbs. 

wurzel and chaff 81 8 

Couples fed on cut Swedes and chaff 9£ 34 

" This experiment does not speak much in favor of mangel wurzel 
for couples early in the spring, but my ewes did not appear to like them, 
and would not take to thorn well only as they were fresh cut. I found, 
upon weighing the food of both sorts, that the ewes ate of mangel about 
14 lbs. each per day, and those that had Swedes 22 lbs. each, which was 
a ureal difference in the consumption of food ; mangel being of a softer 
nature than Swedes, they ought to have eaten the most of them, but as 
the contrary was the fact, I suppose made the great difference stated in 



APPENDIX C. 421 

the loss in weight of those ewes feci on the mangel over those that had 
Swedes, whilst the gain in weight of their lambs was much about the 
same. Hence, I conclude that if ewes are fed with mangel wurzel, they 
should have them thrown whole to them, either on grass land or in the 
yard, with plenty of good clover-hay chaff, or they will not do well ; 
but this more particularly applies to their use in the early spring months, 
when they are in a very succulent state ; they, however, lose much of 
this by keeping toward the summer, when their value becomes apparent, 
as I shall endeavor to show hereafter. * * * * 

" When young lambs are about three weeks old they will begin to 
eat, and should have some food given them apart from the ewes, or run 
upon some green food, such as clover, tares, or grass. I generally make 
a yard or fold with common hurdles (kept very airy and well littered) on 
my land intended the following summer for turnips, into which I put my 
ewes when their lambs begin to eat, and let the lambs run through a 
hurdle set up endwise upon a piece of tares or vetches sown for the pur- 
pose the preceding autumn. The couples are kept in«this way until the 
pastures intended for them have grown sufficiently high to carry the 
number required until the lambs are weaned. Although some extra 
expense is incurred by this system in the use of dry food, a good return 
is obtained by the outlay, as the clovers and grass, by not being stocked 
early, carry a much greater number of couples during the summer. 
The usual method is to turn the ewes and lambs upon the clovers and 
grass as soon as the turnip season is over, allowing them to range indis- 
criminately over the whole field, which is decidedly a bad practice. I 
would strongly recommend that part of the field should be fenced off 
for the lambs to feed upon apart from their dams, which may be done 
by setting upright some common hurdles. 

•' Method of Keeping Couples during the Early Summer Months. — In the 
year 1845 I had a field of land, one side of which was sown with white 
clover and trefoil, the other side with tares, and a piece of red or broad 
clover was sown between each. The white clover and the tares were 
fed off with ewes and lambs in the usual way, the ewes on either part 
being kept asunder, but the lambs from each lot ran together through 
the hurdles upon the red clover, which was a good pasture ; they had 
also a few split beans every clay. To ascertain the value of tares against 
clover and trefoil, for this purpose, I made 

" Experiment No. 4. — From each of the above lots I took a few lambs 
and weighed them alive twice during the month of May, and found their 
increase in live weight per month to be as follows : 

Average gain, in weight, of seven lambs, whose dams were fed lbs. 

on clover and trefoil 20 

The like, whose dams were fed duing the same period on tares. . 16£ 
— being a difference of 3£ lbs. each lamb in favor of the clover and 
trefoil. ******** 

" In the spring of 1846, having a considerable quantity of the yellow 
globe mangel wurzel left on hand, I determined on making a further 
trial of them as a summer food for sucking ewes, conceiving that they 
would, when bereft of much of their succulent qualities through keeping, 
feed sheep better than I found to be the case, as related in experiment 
No. 3. I, therefore, selected from the flock a few couples in the middle 
of May ; one part of them were folded in the clover field, and fed with 



422 APPENDIX C. 

plenty of cut mangel wurzel and a little hay- chaff; their lambs ran 
through the hurdles on a good pasture of red clover. The other lot of 
ewes were left at large in the common way on white clover and trefoil; 
their lambs, also, had a good piece of red clover to feed upon: both lots 
of lambs had a small quantity of peas. 

" Experiment No. 6. — On the 25th of May the lambs from each of the 
lots above described were weighed alive, and again on the 22d of June, 
when the result was as follows : 
Those lambs belonging to the ewes fed on mangel wurzel, gained lbs. 

each, on the average, in 28 days 21 

Lambs from ewes fed in the usual way on clover and trefoil, 

gained each, in the same time 18 

Difference each lamb in favor of mangel wurzel 3 

" This statement, as well as others preceding, of lambs gaining in 
live weight of about 20 lbs. each in 28 days, may appear startling to 
those unaccustomed to weigh them alive, but this is no uncommon 
weight for lambs to gain, if well fed and attended to in the early sum- 
mer months. Those ewes fed on mangel ate about 22^ lbs. each per day, 
care being taken that their lambs had none of it on those days that the 
food was weighed, and, unlike those ewes fed on it in March, (see 
Experiment No. 3,) I found them to thrive and do well with it. It 
should, however, be remembered that the summer of 1846 was very 
favorable for the use of mangel, the weather being very dry the whole 
of the period the above trial was carried on, and, consequently, more 
unfavorable for those ewes fed on the clovers, wdiich, toward the end of 
the time, were nearly dried up. From this trial it appears that mangel 
wurzel is of great use as a summer food for sheep, and as it will keep a 
long time, if properly stored the preceding autumn, must be very useful 
in a dry season for any kind of stock. * * * * 

" Having proved by many experiments the advantage of putting 
young lambs, after weaning, upon old keeping — namely, pastures that 
have been stocked from the commencement of the spring — over 
eddishes or pastures that have been previously mown the same season, 
I will state one experiment as a sample of the rest. In the year 
1834, I put a lot of lambs on some old sainfoin, having a few tares 
carried to them, and another lot of lambs were put on young sainfoin, 
or an eddish which had grown to a pasture ; these, also, had some 
tares. Each lot was weighed at the commencement, and again at 
the end of the trial: 

"Experiment No. 7. — Gain in weight of a lot of lambs fed on lbs. 
old sainfoin, from July 10 to August 10, each on the 

average, 14£ 

Lambs fed on sainfoin eddish, gained each in the same time,. Si 

Difference, 6 

* * * * * * * * -x- 

" Experiment No. 8. — June 10, 1S44, ten lambs were weaned, and 
weighed alive, and put on red clover, with some tares and beans 
given ; on the same day, ten lambs were weighed alive, remaining 
with their dams on white clover and trefoil, but allowed to run 
through hurdles upon good red clover. Each lot was weighed again 



APPENDIX C. 423 

on July 5th, when it was found that they had increased in weight as 
follows, each lamb on the average: 

Lambs not weaned gained each, in thirty -three days, 17 lbs. 

Lambs, weaned, gained in the same time, 16£ " 

" Experiment No. 9.— June 4, 1845, twelve lambs were weaned and 
put upon red clover, tares, and a few beans, twelve other -lambs lying 
with their dams on white clover, but run through hurdles upon good 
red clover. Both lots were weighed when put to trial, and again at 
the end of a month. 

Gain in weight of lambs not weaned, 21 lbs. 

Gain in weight of lambs that were weaned during the same 

time 20f " 

" These experiments are nearly equal ; but I must remark, that 
many of those lambs that were weaned early wintered the best." 
********* 

" Experiment No. 10. — In the month of October, I selected two 
lots of lambs, and weighed them alive. To one lot was given, in 
troughs, cut Swedes; and to the other was given, in troughs, the 
common white turnip, also sliced. At the expiration of a month they 
were weighed again, and gained each, on the average, as follows : 

The lambs fed on common white turnips cut gained each,. ... 10 lbs. 
Those fed on cut Swedes, gained in the same time each, 4$ " 

In favor of the white turnip, 5£ 

To show that the white turnip loses much of its value as the winter 
approaches, agreeably to what I have stated, I will just show the 
result of another experiment.' 

" Experiment No. 11. — On the 8th of November two lots of lambs 
were weighed alive. One lot was fed on cut Swedes only, and the 
other lot had only cut white turnips. They were weighed again 
December 6, and gained each as follows, on the average: 

Lambs fed on white turnips gained each, in a month, 6£ lbs. 

The lambs fed on Swedes gained, in same time, 5 " 

"The same lambs were continued to be fed as before for three 
weeks longer, when I found, upon weighing them again, that the white 
turnips quite gave place to the Swedes. 

" Experiment No. 12, (dry food, with Swedes, against Swedes only. — 
In 1833 I weighed two lots of lambs on the 19th of November. To 
one was given cut Swedes, with clover-hay chaff and maltcoom mixed ; 
the other lot had only cut Swedes. They were all weighed again on 
the 16th of January, and gained in weight as follows : 

Lot of lambs fed on cut Swedes, with clover-chaff and maltcoom, lbs. 

gained each, in two months, 14£ 

Lot of lambs fed on Swedes only, gained each, in the same time, 8 

In favor of dry food, 6$ 



424 APPENDIX C. 

" Experiment No. 13. — Being again desirous of testing the use of 
dry food for lambs at turnips, I took sixteen lambs from my flock on 
February the 18th, 1846, and weighed them ; eight of them were penned 
and fed with cut Swedes only. The other eight lambs had cut Swedes, 
with 2 lbs. of clover-hay chaff and 2 lbs. of bran mixed together for the 
eight per day, or half-a-pound each. They were weighed again on the 
17th of March, when the result was as follows: 
Gain in weight of lambs, on the average, fed on Swedes, bran, lbs. 

and clover- chaff, in a month, 7£ 

Gain in weight of lambs fed only on Swedes, during same time, 3f 

Difference in favor of dry food, 3$ 

The cost of dry food was 
2 lbs. of bran per day amongst eight lambs for 28 days, or 4 s. d. 

stone at 5s. per cwt. cost, 2 6 

2 lbs. of clover per day for eight lambs, during 28 days, gives 4 

stone at 4s. per cwt 2 

8)4 6 

Cost of dry food for each lamb, per month, 6$ 

****** * * * 

" Experiment No. 14. — Having used linseed for some years with 
success in the feeding of cattle, I determined to try whether it would 
answer equally as well for sheep. I therefore gave a lot of eight lambs, 
feeding on cabbages with white turnips, half a pint of linseed each per 
day. To another lot of eight lambs, also upon cabbages with white 
turnips, clover -chaff was given, as much as they would eat. They 
were all weighed on the 27th of Octqber, and again at the end of 
the trial. 

Lambs fed on cabbage and linseed gained each per month,... 16 lbs. 
Lambs fed on cabbage and clover-hay chaff gained each, in 

same time, 16 " 

"Experiment No. 15.— Having determined some years ago to have 
nothing more to do with feeding sheep in yards, I was, however, last 
season induced, through the favorable representations of some persons, 
to give it a further trial. I took some of my best lambs, that I intended 
to show for premiums, and put them into a warm, well-sheltered yard, 
with a lofty hovel to feed under, being kept well littered with dry, fresh 
straw; and their quarters appeared so comfortable, that I thought they 
must go on well. They were fed with Swedes and corn in the usual 
way. I weighed them alive when put into the yard, December 4th, 
1845, against some other lambs fed on the same food, but in the field, 
kept in the ordinary way. Both lots were weighed again on February 
3d, 1846. J 

Those fed in the turnip-field gained each, on the average, in lbs. 

eight weeks, 13 

Those lambs fed in the yard gained each, on the average, in the 

same time, , 3 

Against the yard -feeding system, 10 



APPENDIX D. 425 

" These lambs did not appear to like the confinement of being in 
a yard, and would take every opportunity of getting out if they could. 
This system is not natural for sheep, and cannot answer for long-wools, 
or be depended on. ****** 

"Experiment No. 16. — lbs. 

On grass land, lambs fed with Swedes and chaff gained each, 

on the average, from December 10 to March 5, 18 

On turnip land, lambs fed in the same way gained each, in the 

same time, 17 

"Experiment No. 17. — 

On grass land, lot of lambs fed with cut Swedes and chaff, in 
Dec, Jan., and Feb., 1835, gained each, on the average, in 
three months, , 21 

On turnip land, lot of lambs, fed in the same manner, gained 

each, in the same time, 19 

Being only a gain of 2 lbs. each during three months. 
" Experiment No. 18. — 
On grass land, lambs fed on carrots, Swedes, and chaff, gained 

each, on the average, from Jan. 27, 1836, to March 2, 7 

On turnip land, lambs fed in the same manner gained each, in 

the same time, 2£ 

"The difference here is greatly in favor of feeding on grass land, 
but not for carrots, (see other experiments.) 

" Experiment No. 19. — 
On grass land, lambs fed on Swedes, carrots, and chaff gained 

each, on the average, from Nov. 16, 1837, to Feb. 10, 16 

On turnip land, lot of lambs, fed in the same manner, gained 

each, in the same time, 18| 

" This experiment differs much from the last ; but it is the result of 
three or four experiments that must be looked to, for I well know 
that no single experiment can be depended on. 



APPENDIX D — (page 248.) 
SHEEP AND PKODUCT 01 WOOL IE UNITED STATES. 

The following statistics are from the United States Census of 1860. 
Under the extraordinary demand for wool which has existed for the last 
two years, the number of sheep has probably increased far more since 
1860 than it did for the ten preceding years. 



42G 



APPENDIX D. 



STATES. 



Alabama, . 

Arkansas, 

California, 

Connecticut, 

Delaware, 

Florida, 

Georgia, 

Illinois, . 

Indiana, 

Iowa, 

Kansas, 

Kentucky 

Louisiana, 

Maine, 

Maryland, 

Massachusetts, 

Michigan, 

Minnesota, .., 

Mississippi, 

Missouri, 

New Hampshire,. 

New Jersey, 

New York, 

North Carolina,.. 

Ohio, 

Oregon, 

Pennsylvania, 

Rhode Island, 

South Carolina, .. 

Tennessee, 

Texas 

Vermont, . 

Virginia, 

Wisconsin, . „«.«■>. 

Total States, 



TERRITORIES. 



Columbia, District of.. 

Dakota, ......... 

Nebraska, 

New Mexico, 

Utah, 

Washington, , 



Total Territories, . 
Afrfrrejrnte, 



Wool. 



1S50. 



Pounds. 

657,118 

182,595 

6,520 

497,454 

57,708 

23,247 

990,019 

2,150,113 

2,610,287 

373,898 



2,297,433 

109,897 
1,364,034 

477,438 

585,136 

2,043,288 

85 

559,019 
1,027.164 
1,108,476 

375,396 
10,071,301 

970,738 

10,196,371 

29,686 

4,481,570 

129,692 

487,233 
1,364,378 

131,917 
3,400,717 
2,860,765 

253,963 



52,474,311 



32,901 
9,222 



42,048 



1800. 



Pounds. 

681,404 

410,285 

2,681,922 

835,086 

60,201 

58,594 

940,229 

2,477,563 

053,036 

22^93 

2,826,124 

296,187 
1,495,063 

491,511 

377.267 

4,002.858 

22,740 

637,729 
2,009,778 
1460,212 

349,250 
9,454,473 

883,473 
10,648,161 

208,943 

4,752,523 

90,099 

427,102 
1,400,608 
1,497,748 
2,975,944 
2,509.443 
1,011,915 






100 



3,312 
479,245 
75,638 
20,720 



579.015 



Sheep. 



1860. 

Wumber. 

369,061 

202,674 

1,075,718 

117,107 

18,857 

29,958 

612,618 

775,230 

2,157,375 

258,228 

15,702 

988,990 

180,855 

452,472 

155.765 

lU.Sjy 

1,465,477 

13,128 

9o7.4i5 

135.228 

: 

646.749 
8,068,887 

75,936 

1.631,540 

32,624 

283,509 

77.J.:.17 
783,618 
721.993 
1,042,946 
332,454 



22.431,428 



40 

22 

1,757 

836,459 

37.8S8 

10,162 



6,328 



60,511,343 



23,317,756 



APPENDIX E. 427 



* APPENDIX E — (Page 250.) 

STAETING A SHEEP ESTABLISHMENT IN THE HEW 
WESTEEN STATES. 

The following letter is from an intelligent gentleman residing in 
Essex County, New York, whom I knew a few years since as a highly 
respectable member of the New York Legislature : 

Chicago, Illinois, May 1, 1863. 

Hon. H. S. Randall — Dear Sir: Yours dated April 20th came duly 
to hand. I should have replied at once, but have not had a spare 
moment for the last four weeks, as my sheep have required my undivided 
attention. I am here on business for a day, and will take time to give 
you a few facts as far as my experience is concerned. 

About the 20th of last July I started from Calhoun County, Michigan, 
with two droves of sheep, about 1,700 in each drove. My destination 
was Southern Minnesota. In consequence of the Indian outbreak in 
that section of country, I changed my plan and stopped in Northern 
Iowa, about twenty miles west of McGregor, on the old military road 
to Forts Crawford and Atkinson. My sheep stood driving remarkably 
well, and arrived at that point about the 10th of September. I found 
good feed, and by the time winter set in my sheep were in fine order. 
I sold about 300 in the autumn, thinking I would winter the remainder. 
I then set about preparing winter quarters for 3,000 sheep. I did not 
erect my sheds at one place, (on account of the inconvenience of hauling 
the feed I had purchased to one place,) but about two miles apart, where 
water was convenient. I succeeded in getting a grove, at each place, 
and built my sheds fronting the grove and parallel with each other, 
about 500 feet long. I built them of poles and posts from the groves, 
and covered them with straw. The front posts were about six feet 
above ground and the back ones about four. I employed Irishmen 
that were in the habit of using the spade and covered the back side 
with dirt, and then covered this smoothly with sod, which made them 
very warm — being left open in front, this was important. I then cut 
the sheds up with board fences about 22 feet apart, commencing under 
the shed and running out about 50 feet in front, making yard and shelter 
for about 50 sheep. I forgot to mention the width of the sheds, which was 
13 feet. I then sorted my sheep, putting heavy wethers by themselves, 
heavy ewes by themselves, &c. ; in short, I went through the flock 
grading them according to strength and sex. I started with prepared 
winter quarters for 3,000, but continued to sell some through the early 
part of winter. By the 1st of January I had reduced my flock to 2,200. 
After that I declined selling more. 

I will now give you a brief account of my feeding, its quantity, 
quality, &c. I procured what hay I conveniently could, about half of 
which was nice timothy. I expected to buy from time to time during 
the winter, which I have been able to do at fair rates, say from $3 to 
$4 per ton. I would quite as soon have good upland prairie hay as 
timothy, provided it is cut early. The sheep will eat it better. I also 
bought what corn I could in the field, pajing from $4 to $7 per acre. 



428 APPENDIX F. 

This I cut while the fodder was green, before frost, shocking it in the 
field and drawing in after the ground froze. This I found excellent 
feed. I fed it once a day, usually at noon. After that was used up I 
fed corn in the ear to all except my yearling lambs. The latter I fed a 
mixture of shelled corn, oats and shorts from the mill, mixing it as 
follows : — I corn, i oats, ■£• shorts. I gave a pen of 50 lambs one-half 
bushel once a day (at 11 o'clock.) This, with what hay they could eat, 
made them prosper finely. I fed hay to all my sheep twice a day ; but 
the lambs generally got it three times. 

My sheep have been remarkably healthy. Of course one dies 
occasionally, but I have got them Well through the winter. I have just 
finished tagging. On coming to handle them, we find them very heavy. 
A large number are good mutton. Since putting up my sheep last fall, 
I have lost less than one per cent, of 630 lambs that I went into winter 
with. Only one has died. I think the feed I have used for lambs can't 
be bettered. My sheep are about two-thirds ewes. I can't give any 
definite idea of how many lambs I shall have, as I did not put my bucks 
in with my ewes until the first of December. I was unfortunate enough 
in the autumn to have a native buck get in with my flock once in a 
while, and the result has been that I have had about ninety lambs 
during the winter, scattered along. I had from the ninety ewes eighty- 
four good healthy lambs. I should, however, have had but very few of 
the lambs living, coming as they did, had it not been for the care of my 
yard-master. A lamb will chill in one hour in cold weather if not 
taken to the fire to dry, which is found necessary in most cases. 

I am satisfied that Iowa and Southern Minnesota are especially 
adapted to wool growing. The country where I am keeping my sheep 
is somewhat uneven and rolling, and a good farming country. The 
country seems prosperous. Improved farms are selling from $15 to $20 
per acre, and unimproved lands from $3 to $10 per acre. 

I am sorry that I am obliged to give you such a hurried statement 
of my experience with sheep in the West. Any farther inquiries you 
may be pleased to make, I shall be happy to answer. 

Yours truly, R. A. Loveland. 




APPENDIX F— (page 257.) 
CLIMATE OP TEXAS. 

The following account of some of the peculiarities of the climate of 
Texas, of the seasons and crops and their vicissitudes, I extract from 
articles on the Climatology of that State, contributed to the Texas 
Almanacs of 1860 and 1861, by Professor Caleb G. Forshey, Superinten- 
dent of the Military Institute, in Fayette County : 



ArPENDIX F. 429 

TEXAS NORTHERS. 

Number and Duration. — 1. During seven or eight months of every 
year, Texas is liable to a class of storms, or winds, styled " northers, 
from the direction from which they come. 

2. In the year 1857, there were twenty-six northers experienced at 
the Texas Military Institute, in Fayette county. Of these some two or 
three were gentle or baffled northers. They occupied fifty-seven days, 
having an average of two and one-fifth days in length. The latest in 
spring, was May 16, and earliest in autumn, was Nov. 7. 

3. In the year 1858, there were thirty-seven northers, about thirty- 
three of which might be classed as well marked, the others being either 
gentle or baffled northers. These occupied seventy-eight days. The 
latest in spring, was May 9, and the earliest in autumn, was Oct. 7. 

4. In the first half of 1859, there have been twenty-four northers, of 
which four may be described as gentle or baffled northers. They have 
occupied forty-seven clays in their transit, and the latest was May 24. 

5. It is proper to remark that nearly all the northers of May and 
October are mild, and rarely do much damage, or produce so low a 
temperature as to be severely felt. All the other months, November to 
April inclusive, are liable to northers of considerable severity. 

6. It appears then, that in thirty months last past, of which eighteen 
months are liable to distinct northers, we have experienced eighty 
northers, not including the feeble ones of May and October. The same 
period has seventy-seven weeks, very nearly affirming the hypothesis of 
weekly returns of the norther. An inspection of the table shows a large 
number of punctual weekly recurrences of this meteor. 

7. At this place of observation their duration varies from one to four 
days. 

Area and Boundaries of Nortlier. — 8. The region over which this 
peculiar storm has its sweep, is not very great, though its precise limits 
can not be defined. By diligent inquiry from persons of great experi- 
ence, we submit the following limits : 

9. On the north, by the valley of Red river, in the Indian Territory; 
on the east, by the second tier of counties from the east boundary of 
Texas, near meridian 95°, south to the Trinity and thence south-east to 
the mouth of the Sabine. On the south they are felt across the Gulf, to 
the coast of South-Mexico and Yucatan. On the west they are bounded 
by the Sierra Madre, up to the mouth of the Pecos, and thence by about 
the 101st meridian to the sources of Red river. 

10. Within this area, there are various degrees of violence, having 
their axis of intensity between meridians 97 and 98, and increasing in 
force and duration, the further south. At Red river, on this line, they 
are usually limited to a day or two ; whereas at Corpus Christi and 
Matamoras, one norther often continues till the next supersedes it ; and 
at Vera Cruz, a twenty-days nortlier is not remarkable. 

West of Fort Belknap, to the Pecos, the northers grow feebler and 
rarer. North of Red river, on the route from Fort Washita to Fort 
Smith, they are rarely felt. 

On the east margin they are much modified by the forests of the 
timbered region. At all points, an open prairie increases their vigor. 



430 ATTENDIX F. 

Force* and oilier Phenomena. — 11. The norther usually commences 
with a violence nearly equal to its greatest force, if its initial point be 
near the observer. If it has traveled some distance, it Mill be wanned 
up, and moderated in its violence, at first attack. Its greatest force 
might be marked five, in a scale between a gentle breeze, at one, and a 
hurricane, at ten. The writer has measured one traveling at about 
thirty-two miles per hour — but many others at twelve to eighteen miles. 
The mean progress seems to be about fifteen miles per hour. 

12. Just before a norther, two to six hours, the south wind lulls, and 
the still air becomes very oppressive. A low black cloud rolls up from 
the north, and when it comes near the zenith, the wind strikes with 
vigor. Sometimes we have a sudden dash of rain; but generally 
northers are intensely dry, and soon drink up all the moisture of the 
surface earth, and of the objects upon it, capable of yielding their 
humidity. 

Great thirst of man, and all other animals, is experienced ; an itching 
sensation over the skin ; a highly electric condition of the skin of horses 
and cats; a wilting and withering of vegetation, even when the tempe- 
rature would not account for it ; a reduction of temperature, usually very 
sudden, sometimes, though rarely, a degree per minute, for twenty 
minutes ; and in winter commonly a reduction from 70" or 75°, to 30° 
or 40°. 

This fall of temperature is the more severely felt from the diving 
power of the north wind — evaporation from the surface of the akin 
increasing the severity of the temperature. 

13. Nervous, rheumatic, and gouty persons suffer more severely than 
others. To invalids suffering from other maladies, it has not been found 
unhealthy; and for persons of weak lungs, if not too much exposed to 
its direct fury, it is foimd. to be more salubrious than the humid south 
winds. Consumptions do not originate over the area of the norther. 
On the contrary, many persons afflicted with weak or diseased lungs, 
resort to this region, and find relief. The western and northern portions 
of this area are most salubrious, and best adapted to weak lungs. 
********* 

Phenomena not readily explicable. — When a dry norther commences, 
the whole air, in an hour or two, curdles, and becomes smoky, or rather 
whitish, and has a distinct smell. Its odor sometimes resembles that 
which is developed by a flash of lightning, though, at other times, it 
reminds one of fine straw smoke, in its odor. 

It is highly probable that this turbidness and odor, are d'.e to the 
ozone set free, by the high electrical excitation, in a dry neither. Ex- 
periments instituted to test the matter, last April, were ioo late in the 
season. 

Sirocco. — When the norther has a little westmg, it is observed to 
be more intensely diy, and to be destructive to vegetation, even before 
the frost which usually follows it. Corn, beans, young foliage, and the 
grass and weeds of the prairie, bow and wither before it.* A few of 
these I have called Siroccos. They occur as well in summer as in spring 
or autumn, and differ, in several respects, from the true norther. 

* The citizens of Galveston, and the southern portions of Texas, will remember 
the violent north-wester in 1850, which preceded and attended the storm which 
wrecked the Nautilus. It was, in my judgment, a true Sirocco. In like manner the 
north-west wind, that withered the corn-fields in Lamar. Fannin, and (irayson, and 
the counties south of those, on the 17th day of August, 1858, deserves a like name. 



APPENDIX F. 



431 



SEASONS AND CROPS: THEIR VICISSITUDES. 



1857. 



January. — No rain 



February 6.— Prai- 
ries getting green. — 
10th. Corn, peas, let- 
tuce, and radishes 
coining up. Rain 1 
inch. 



March 7. — Corn six 
inches high ; prairies 
one month forward. 
12th. Terrible frost; 
kills every tiling 
fruit and crops. Rain 
1 inch. 



April [5. — All green 
again; new crops up 
and vigorous. 6th. 
Norther, hail, and 
freeze; all crops, fruit, 
and mast, killed. 11 
12th. Sleet, snow, and 
freeze, again. 24th. 
Frost in valleys 
Rain, , l 2 inch. 

May 30. — Rain two 
inches— not 12 inches 
in a year. 



June 11. — Wheat 
reaped ; good crop ; 
man and beast suffer 
ing for water. 20th 
Grass all dead. 



July. — No rain 1 
August, no rain 1 



January. — No se 
vere cold ; abundant 
rain. 

February 3. — Vio- 
lent storm. 1st. Bra- 
zos overflows. 22d 
Peaches killed by 
frost, 23 deg. 27th 
Growing weather. 



March 2. — Freeze, 
24 deg. 20th. Woods 
greenish ; grasshop- 
pers hatching, west. 
27th. Make havoc and 
migrate. 17th. Corn 
planted. 25th. Squir 
rels migrate on Trin- 
ity. 



April 1 — Grasshop- 
pers bad in Guada 
loupe; May 20, coun 
try eaten up by them 
west of 97° 10'. 



May 1 to 9. — Rain 
5)2 inches ; wheat, 
oats, rye and millet 
die of rust. 10-15th. 
Rivers overflow. 25- 
30th. Corn tasseling ; 
beans, peas and pota 
toes in use from 10th. 



June. — Showery 
weather. 11th. Great 
rain. Rahvin June, 
6% inches. 6th. Roast 
ing ears. 



July. — Rain 1 inch. 
Good corn crops over 
most of the State. — 
Rust kills all small 
grain. 



January — Some se- 
vere weather. Rain 
2)4. inches. 

February 15— Grass 
covers woods and 
prairies ; corn-plant 
ing begins. 24th. — 
Woods gray. Rain 1 
inch. 



March 6. — Woods 
half-green ; rye head 
ing; dogwoods bloom; 
corn coming up gen 
erally. 20th. Good 
stand ; post oaks 
naked, blackjacks 
green. 23d. Wild 
geese leave,and doves 
coo. Rain — 7.87. 



April 1. — Radishes 
and lettuce. 23d. 
Frost kills corn and 
cotton in low grounds 
Rain, 0.69 in. 



May 7.— Fair rains 
start the re-planted 
crops ; not one grass 
hopper in the land 
22d. Crops look well 
wheat harvest begins! 
28th. Wheat harvest 
closes; early corn tas 
sels. Total rain, 6.76 
inches. 

June 3. — Roasting 
ears. 11th. Rain saves 
corn ; total, 0.50 in, 



July.— Very dry. — 
Total rain, 0.90. 30th. 
Cattle suffer for water 



I860. 



January. — Moder- 
ately cold. Rain, 1.5 
inch. 

February 1, 2, 3, 24, 
26, 26.— Frost. 17th. 
Rain copious, East- 
Texas. Whole rain of 
month, 5 inches. 



March 5. — Prairies 
green; corn-planting ; 
woods gray. Frost, 
28-9 cuts off cotton 
and some corn, and 
gardens. 14th. Rad- 
ishes and lettuce.— 
Whole rain, 1.5 in. 
28th. Geese migrate ; 
good prospects of 
crop. 

April 1. — Whip- 
poor - wills. 5th. — 
Woods quite green. 
14th. Ground crack- 
from drouth. — 
21st. Dewberries ripe. 
19th-27th, good rains; 
total, 3.8 inches. 



May 1. — Crops wry 
promising ; no grass- 
hoppers. 15th. Crops 
wilt for want of rain. 
25th. Corn tasseling ; 
very dry. 21st. Rye 
ripe. 26th. Oats cut. 
30th. Wheat ripe and 
cutting. Rain, 0.35 in. 



June. — No rain this 
month. Corn per- 
ishes, gardens die, 
creeks and springs 
dry up. Much corn cut 
up west of Colorado. 
Payette and Wash- 
ington make half- 
crops corn ; wheat, 
oats, rye, and barley 
good. Greatest 
drouth over United 
States ever remem- 
bered. 

July 1.— Cattle suf- 
fer for water ; ponds 
and creeks all dry ; 
continues to July 
18th, when this report 
closes. 



432 



ArrENIHX F. 



September 7. — Oaks 
drying from drouth, 
except live oak. First 
good rain this year, 2 
inches. 

October.— Eain, 3>i 
inches. The prairies 
green. 

November. — Grass- 
hoppers, west. Rea 
sonable rains ; good 
fall gardens. 26-27th. 
Hard storms very 
extensive ; Nebraska 
wrecked at Galves 
ton. Rain, 2}i inches 

December — Lowest 
temperature, 30°. 



1*58. 



August and Sep- 
tember. — Dry ; only 1 
inch rain. 



October. — Good 
rains, 3.7 inches. 



November. — Some 
rain— 2)£ inches. 



December. — Rains 
copious, 4.4 inches 
No severe cold. 



1S59. 



August— Rain, 0.50; 
west of 97° no rain ; 
all summer corn and 
cotton dead. Augnst 
gave showers 
Guadaloupe, etc. 



Sept, — Good rains 
5.85 inches. 



October. — Good 
rains, 6.60 inches. 



November.— Warm 
and pleasant month ; 
no rain. 



December 1 to 8. — 
Terrible winter 
weather; snow, sleet, 
rain and freeze ; kills 
cattle, horses and 
sheep in vast num 
bers. Hardest Decem- 
ber ever known. 



1860. 



NORTHERS, WINTER OF 1859-60. 

First genuine norther, Sept. 30Number of days occupied, 101 

Last genuine norther, April 23| Average duration, hours,. 89 

Number of weeks 1 time, 38 Lowest day's temperature, Dec. 6th, ...16° 

Number of northers, 28|Lowest 3 days' norther, Dec. 6th, 30.3 

TEMPERATURE AND HYGROMETRY OF 1859 AND TART OF I860. 





1859. 


1860. 


January, . . 
February, . 

March, 

April, 

May, 

June, 

July, 


Tem 

SUNR. 

41.00 
66.19 

63.71 
59.44 

71.48 
72.23 
82.05 
79.(11 
75.30 
59.80 
56.16 
35.00 


PERAT 

2 p.m. 
63.58 

73.32 
71.50 
72.60 
84.22 
88.38 
89.77 
93.02 
85.00 
75.20 
74.43 
54,00 


URE. 

9 p.m. 
47.10 

58.82 
59.00 
Oii.on 
71.13 
80.07 
82.10 
82.04 
78,00 
G3.SG 
61.10 
■40.00 


MEAN 

50.57 
02.44 
61.50 
05.31 
75.61 
81.50 
84.70 
84.90 
79.42 
GG.29 
63.92 
43.00 


WET 
BULD 
MEAN 
48.00 
50.50 
54.50 
59.83 
00.33 
76.45 
77.40 
70.30 
75.40 
64.53 
61.80 
42.25 


rain: 

IN. 

4.75 
0.80 
1.56 
0.75 
1.75 
2.50 
2.30 
0.40 
5.85 
6.60 
0.10 
3.00 


..... 


Tem 

SUNR. 

45.11 
46.04 
53.10 
03.00 
73.40 
81.21 


PERAT 
2 P.M. 

oo.oo 
67.20 
73.06 
78.03 
85.30 
94.21 


URE. 

9 P.M. 

50.00 

53.04 
58.17 
00.20 
72.52 
81.27 


MEAN 
52.03 
55.40 
61.13 
69.47 
76.22 
85.58 


BULB 

MEAN 

4s.7:; 
50.17 
55.24 
04.2(1 
09.04 
5.18 


rain: 
in. 
1.40 
186 
1.86 
8.80 
0.35 
0.00 
































































































Annual, . 








CS.04 


63.62 


30.36 


'Ayr- 


60.42 


76.51 


63.03 


66.67 


60.44 


11.75 



APPENDIX O. 



433 



APPENDIX G. 

PB0P0KTI0N OP WOOL TO MEAT IS SHEEP OP DIFPEBENT 
AGES, SEXES AND SIZES. 

The following was not received until this work was nearly through 
the press, and too late to refer to it except in this place : 

Pompey, Onon. Co., N. Y., Aug. 22, 1863. 

Hon. Henry S. Randall — Dear Sir: Agreeable to your request, I 
herewith send you my investigations and observations upon the compar- 
ative weight of wool and bodies of sheep. I hope they will be of benefit 
to the sheep breeder, as well as the wool grower ; and that I shall have 
the satisfaction of knowing that I have in part repaid to the world much 
that I owe for the investigations of those who have gone before me. 
With high hopes, but no higher ambition than to be called a "good 
farmer," I remain your obedient servant, 

Homer D. L. Sweet. 

COMPARATIVE WEIGHT OP WOOL AND BODIES OP SHEEP. 
BY H. D. L. SWEET. 

The Hon. Robert R. Livingston, the first President of the first Agri- 
cultural Society of the State of New York, in his justly celebrated essay 
on Fine-Wooled Sheep, uses the following language : 

" The inferiority in the size of the Merino to some other breeds, 
which some make as an objection, is, in my opinion, an important 
advantage, not only in sheep but in every other stock not designed for 
the draft ; because they will fatten in pastures in which larger cattle 
would suffer from the fatigue they must undergo, in order to procure 
the food that is necessary for their support. 

" This meaning applies more strongly to sheep than to any other 
stock. They are generally kept upon high and dry pastures, that are 
frequently parched in summer, when fatigue is most irksome to them. 
To which we may add that the fleece is not proportioned, as the food is 
to the bulk of the animal, but to his surface, and a small sheep having 
more surface in proportion to his bulk, must also have wool in the same 
proportion. That is, a sheep whose live weight shall be 60 lbs., and 
who, of course, will require but one-quarter of the food of a sheep that 
weighs 240 lbs. will, notwithstanding, have half as much wool (if the 
fleeces are equally thick,) as his gigantic brother." * 

* Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts, Vol. n, p. 86. 
19 



434 APPENDIX G. 

In proof of the first proposition, that sheep do consume in proportion 
to their bulk, Mr. Livingston submits, in an appendix to his essay, the 
record of many experiments which show conclusively that such is the 
fact ; but of his second proposition, that they shear in proportion to their 
surface, he gives no facts, and I suppose it to be mere theory. The 
attention of the writer was called to this subject by the Hon. George 
Geddes, some four years since, and at his request the trial was made, 
and the result has been given to the world by yourself. Experiments 
of the same character on the same flock have been conducted for three 
successive years, and their results are recorded in the following tables. 

In one or two points they are not as perfect as I could wish, but they 
are the best that could be done with so small a flock. Had there been 
from forty to fifty in each class and every year, the natural law in rela- 
tion to them might be nearer in accordance with the facts noted ; for as 
there are exceptions to all rules, I may be giving the exception and not 
the rule. This can be true only in regard to five and six year old ewes, 
and five year old wethers. In all other cases, taking the thi ee years 
collectively, I am confident that facts of value have been obtained. 

The base of the flock a few years since was Saxon ; they are now 
classed from one-half to seven-eighths Spanish Merino — a portion of the 
largest, in 1861, was one-quarter French Merino. In 1861 the ewes 
raised 35 lambs; in 1862, 30, and in 1863, 70. In the fall of '61 the 
oldest and largest were sold and replaced by 60 lambs purchased. In 
the fall of '62, 70 wether lambs were purchased, part of the smallest of 
them were sold, some three-year old ewes purchased ; and some older 
ones sold. Other discrepancies that may be noted are attributable to 
death. They were all brook- washed about two weeks before shearing. 
The flocks at the time of shearing were in good condition — some of the 
ewes thin, of course. The four rams in the flock are included with the 
wethers, to save space, figures and calculation. The first cable is the 
Bame as published in 1862, in Mr. Randall's Essay, in the Transactions 
of the N. Y. S. Agricultural Society, except that I have subdivided the 
sexes. The fifth table is the same as the second one then published, 
except that I have added the last three classes, and called them one. 
They were sheared the 26th and 27th of June, 1861 ; 27th, 28th and 30th 
of June, 1862, and 25th, 26th and 27th of June, 1863. Every sheep and 
fleece were weighed separately and recorded on the spot. 

[ The tables referred to in the preceding paragraphs are given on 
the two following pages.] 



APPENDIX G. 



435 



SWEET BROTHER'S FLOCK, POMPEY, N". Y. 
TABLE 1. 1861.- Classified by Age and Sex. 



No. IN 


Ages. 


SEXES, 


Gross 


W't. or 


Wt.of 


Aver, of 


Aver, of 


Lbs. of 
Body to 
L of Wl. 


Per Ct. 
of W. to 
Gr. Wt. 


Class. 


Ewes. 


Weth's. 


Weight. 


Bodies. 


Wool. 


Bodies. 


Fleeces. 


19 


1 


E 




1,193.72 


1,097 


96.72 


52.47 


5.09 


10.44 


8.10 


13 


1 




W 


965.23 


894 


71.23 


68.77 


5.48 


12.55 


7.37 


15 


2 


E 




1,124.37 


1'048 


76.37 


69.86 


5.09 


13.72 


6.88 


15 


2 




w 


1,383.92 


1,299 


84.92 


86.66 


5.66 


15.29 


'6.53 


9 


3 


E 




759.14 


710 


49.14 


78.88 


5.45 


14.45 


6.46 


42 


3 




w 


4,155.11 


3,891 


264.11 


92.64 


6.28 


14.73 


6.83 


41 


4 


E 




3,738. 


3.557 


181. 


86.75 


4.41 


19.65 


4.84 


26 


4 




w 


2,921.13 


2,736 


185.13 


105.11 


7.12 


14.76 


6.33 


180 


1 to 4 


84 


96 


16.341. 


15,331 


1.010 


85.17 


5.38 


15.17 


6.18 







TABLE 2. 


1862.- 


-Classified by Age and 


Sex. 




42 


1 


E 




2,378.57 


2,189 


189.57 


52.11 


4.51 


11.60 


796 


52 


1 




W 


3,224.51 


2,985 


239.51 


57.40 


4.60 


12.46 


7.42 


19 


2 


E 




1,3S7.16 


1,292 


95.16 


68. 


5. 


13.57 


6.86 


13 


2 




W 


1,225.16 


1,147 


78.16 


88.23 


6. 


14.66 


6.46 


14 


3 


E 




1,026.31 


960 


66.31 


68.57 


4.70 


14.47 


6.46 


13 


3 




w 


1,297.36 


1,215 


82.36 


93.40 


6.33 


14.75 


6.35 


9 


4 


E 




726.59 


679 


47.59 


77.44 


5.28 


14.26 


6.54 


27 


4 




w 


2,693.06 


2,505 


188.06 


92.77 


6.96 


13.32 


6.98 


15 


5 


E 




1,178.15 


1,111 


67.15 


74. 


4.47 


16.54 


5.77 


11 


5 




w 


1,153.40 


1,075 


78.40 


97.72 


7.12 


13.71 


7.00 


215 


1 to 5 


99 


116 


16,290.27 


15,15S 


1,132.27 


70.50 


5.26 


13.30 


6.95 







TABLE 3. 


1863.- 


Classified by Agb 


AND 


Sex. 




14 


1 


E 




955.78 


877 


78.78 


62.64 


5.62 


11.00 


8.24 


78 


1 




W 


5,623.84 


5,201 


422.84 


66.67 


5.42 


12.30 


7.71 


42 


2 


E 




2,861.64 


2,662 


199.64 


63.38 


4.75 


13.33 


6.97 


48 


2 




W 


3,994.79 


3,735 


259.79 


77.81 


6.41 


14.37 


6.50 


33 


3 


E 




2,837.24 


. 2,658 


179.24 


80.54 


5.40 


14.82 


6.31 


13 


3 




W 


1,338.89 


1,251 


87.89 


96.23 


6.76 


14.23 


6.56 


13 


4 


E 




1,154.68 


1,083 


71.68 


83.30 


5.51 


15.10 


6.26 


9 


5 


E 




735.93 


680 


45.93 


75.35 


5.10 


14.82 


6.24 


10 


6 


E 




837.84 


790 


47.84 


79.00 


4.78 


16.49 


6.70 


260 


1 to 6 


121 


139 


20,350.63 


18,957 


1,393.63 


72.91 


5.32 


13.58 


6.84 



TABLE 4. AVERAGE OF THE THREE YEARS. 
Classified by Age and Sex, the Footing being the three Flocks collectively. 



No. in 


Age. 


Sex. 


Av'age Wt. 


Average Wt. 


Pounds of 

Body to 

1 of Wool. 


Average 


Class. 


of Body. 


of Fleece. 


Per Cent. 


75 


1 


E 


55.74 


5.07 


11.01 


8.10 


76 


2 


E 


67.08 


4.94 


13.54 


6.90 


56 


3 


E 


75.99 


6.18 


14.58 


6.41 


63 


4 


E 


82.49 


6.06 


16.33 


5.88 


24 


5 


E 


74.67 


4.75 


15.68 


6.00 


10 


6 


E 


79.00 


4.78 


16.49 


5.70 


143 


1 


W 


64.28 


5.16 


12.43 


7.50 


76 


2 


W 


84.23 


5.69 


14.77 


6.49 


68 


3 


W 


88.86 


6.45 


14.57 


6.58 


53 


4 


w 


103.94 


7,04 


14.04 


6.65 


11 


5 


w 


97.72 


7.12 


13.71 


7.00 




Ewes. 


Weth. 










655 


304 


351 


79.52 


5.32 


14.01 


6.65 



436 



APPENDIX G. 



TABLE 5. 1861.— Classified by Weight, 



In divisions of 10 Pounds eoxh, except those weighing less than 50 lbs., and 
those more than 100 lbs. 



No. IN 
Class. 


Weight 

of Divis- 
ions. 


SEJ 

Ewes. 


.ES. 
Weth. 


Gross 
Weight. 


W'T. OF 

Bodies. 


Wt.of 

Wool. 


Aver, of 
Bodies. 


Aver, of 
Fleeces. 


Lbs. of 
Body to 
1 of Wl. 


Per Ct. 

of W. TO 

Gr. Wt. 


5 
14 
20 
34 
39 
34 
34 


42 to 51 
50 to 61 
60 to 71 
70 to 81 
80 to 91 
90 to 101 
100tol34 


6 
10 
14 
21 
19 
11 

4 


4 
6 
13 
20 
23 
30 


256. 

871. 
1,427. 
2,742. 
3,566. 
3,453. 
4,026. 


234 
803 
1,320 
2,567 
3,355 
3,252 
3,800 


22. 

68. 
107. 
175. 
211. 
201. 
226. 


46.80 
S7.35 
66. 
75.50 
86. 
95.64 
111.76 


4.40 
4.85 
5.35 
5.14 
6.41 
5.91 
6.67 


10.63 
11.80 
12.33 
14.66 
15.87 
15.42 
16.80 


8.59 
7.80 
7.49 
6.38 
6.90 
5.82 
6.61 


180 


42 to 134 


84 


90 


16,341. 


15,331 


1,010. 


85.17 


5.38 


15.17 


6.18 





TABLE 6 


. 1862. — Classified by 


Weight, as before. 




37 


34 to 51 


23 


14 


1,875. 


1,725 


150. 


46.60 


4.05 


11.50 


8.00 


41 


50 to 61 


19 


22 


2,460. 


2,270 


190. 


55.37 


4.63 


11.94 


7.72 


42 


60 to 71 


25 


17 


2,940. 


2,740 


200. 


65.23 


4.75 


13.70 


6.80 


30 


70 to 81 


24 


6 


2,432. 


2,272 


160. 


75.73 


5.33 


14.20 


6.57 


25 


80 to 91 


6 


19 


2,266. 


2,110 


156. 


84.40 


6.24 


13.62 


6.88 


25 


90 to 101 


2 


23 


2,568. 


2,408 


160. 


96.32 


6.40 


15.05 


5.84 


15 


100tol27 




15 


1,743.27 


1,633 


110.27 


108.86 


7.35 


14.80 


6.32 


215 


34 to 127 


99 


116 


16,290.27 


15,158 


1,132.27 


70.50 


5.28 


13.30 


6.95 



TABLE 7. 1863. — Classified by Weight, as before. 



10 136 to 51 


5 


5 


493. 


455 


38. 


40.501 


3.80 


11.97 


7.91 


34 


50 to 61 


15 


19 


2,009. 


1,850 


159. 


54.44 


4.67 


(14.15 


7.90 


67 


00 to 71 


33 


34 


4,828. 


4,480 


348. 


66.88 


6.19 


12.87 


7.20 


96 


70 to 81 


44 


52 


7,755. 


7,230 


525. 


75.301 


5.46 


13.77 


6.76 


28 


80 to 91 


14 


14 


2,560. 


2,390 


160. 


85.3o| 


6.71 


14.93 


6.23 


16 


90 to 101 


7 


9 


1,628. 


1,532 


96. 


95.751 


6.00 


15.85 


5.89 


9 


100tol40 


3 


6 


1,087.63 


1,020 


67.63 


113.33 


7.51 


15.09 


6.21 


260 


30 to 140 


121 


139 


20,350.63 


18,957 


1,393.63 


72.911 


5.32 


13.58 


6.84 





TABLE 8. 


The Average of Tables 5, 6 and 7 




No. in 
Class. 


Weight of 
Divisions. 


SE? 
Ewes. 


LES. 
Weth's. 


Average 

Weight of 

Bodies. 


Average 

Weight of 

Fleeces. 


Pounds of 

Body to 

1 of Wool. 


Per Cent, 
of Wool. 


62 
89 
129 
160 
92 
75 
58 


34 to 51 
50 to 61 
60 to 71 
70 to 81 
80 to 91 
90 to 101 
100 to 140 


33 
44 
72 
89 
39 
20 
7 


19 
45 
67 
71 
53 
55 
61 


44.63 
65.78 
66.03 
75.52 
85.25 
95.90 
111.31 


4.08 
4.71 
5.09 
6.31 
5.78 
6.10 
7.17 


11.36 
11.90 
12.96 
14.21 
14.77 
15.44 
15.56 


8.16 
7.80 
7.13 
6.53 
6.33 
5.85 
6.04 


655 


34 to 140 


304 


351 


79.52 


6.32 


14.01 


6.65 



The value of these tables can only be known by careful comparison 
and thorough study of them. What may be learned I have not now 
the time to determine ; but from a very cursory glance at them, I learn 
that Mr. Livingston's proposition is true. Small sheep do shear more in 
proportion to their bulk than large ones, without regard to age or 



APPENDIX G. 437 

sex. I learn, also, that yearling ewes shear the largest per centage they 
ever -will shear, and that they shear less and less per centage as they 
grow older, till they are four years old. They gain until five, when they 
are in their prime, and raising a lamb at that age does not decrease the 
product of wool as it has done ; but at six they have passed the meri- 
dian, and for the product of wool commence going " down hill." 

It can be seen at a glance that wethers shear their largest per 
cent, when yearlings. At two, they have lost 1 per cent., after which 
they commence gaining, and continue to gain till they are five years old, 
after which I know nothing of the facts. 

The facts are just as obvious in the classification by weight. The 
smallest sheep shear the largest per centage, and as their weight 
increases the fleece decreases in proportion, till they weigh more than 100 
lbs., when it increases the fifth of 1 per cent. — a smaller increase than any 
decrease in either of the tables. This being the exception to what 
before seemed to be the rule, leads me to believe that the number in the 
class is too small, and that I ought to have had 100 sheep at least in this 
class to arrive at the truth. If it could be ascertained what per cent, of 
lambs 100 or 1,000 ewes would raise, and the average market price of 
average lambs on the 1st of October, it could be very easily calculated 
which would be the most profitable to keep, a flock of ewes or wethers. 
But as there is no likelihood of this being done, and as ewes are 
absolutely necessary to increase the flock, perhaps no farmer will be bold 
enough to have a flock exclusively of wethers, though I am confident 
that these tables will prove that the wethers have brought to the farm 
the most money at the average price of wool and lambs. 

If I had the time I might pursue these deductions further, with 
profit to myself if not to those who read ; but I think enough has 
already been disclosed to give any inquiring mind a stimulus to pursue 
the investigation. Every wool raiser ought to know which of his sheep 
he is keeping at a profit and which at a loss. By weighing the fleeces as 
they are shorn, he thinks he knows all about it, when in reality he 
knows nothing, or at the best only half. At sheep shearing the careful 
breeder ought to know what any sheep ought to shear when it comes 
on the floor. For instance, next year we shall have a dozen four 
year old wethers, any one of which ought to weigh somewhere near 
ninety pounds and shear seven pounds. If any one weighs up to the 
average of the last three years, and shears above the average, keep him 
— if below, sell him. When a ewe is brought on the floor, other tilings 
have to be taken into consideration, as she is to breed, viz., the quality 
of the wool, the form of the body, beside the weight of the fleece and 
weight of the body. If she has raised a lamb, it must be examined ; if 
a ewe lamb, particularly. In our flock we have now made a standard 
to which we can refer ; our efforts of course will be to excel it. Those 
who keep flocks expressly for their increase, will make a standard of 
their own, and those who keep sheep exclusively for wool, will make 
their standard accordingly. Every breeder ought to know every fact 
certainly, and have his record to refer to. 



438 APPENDIX H. 



APPENDIX H — (page 75.) 

THE AMERICAN MERINOS AT THE INTERNATIONAL 
EXHIBITION Or 1863. 

It was noticed at page 75 that Mr. George Campbell, of West West- 
minster, Vermont, took American Merino sheep to exhibit at the 
International Exhibition at Hamburg, in July, 1863. The result was 
not ascertained in time to be alluded to in the body of this work. 

Mr. Campbell found 1,761 sheep competing in the same class with 
his own. They were from the Austrian, Prussian and other States of 
Germany, and from France. Among the French sheep competing were 
about sixty belonging to the Emperor Napoleon. Mr. Campbell was 
awarded the first prize of fifty thalers for the best ram, the second prize 
of twenty-five thalers for the second best ram, and the first prize of fifty 
thalers for the best ewes. 

The Committee of Award consisted of eighteen noblemen and 
gentlemen. The examinations were made by sub-committees, whose 
preliminary reports were subject to the revision of the general committee. 
The American sheep had encountered a certain degree of prejudice 
from their first arrival. The breeders of the old world, and particularly 
of Germany, seemed to think it audacious that Americans, who had so 
often imported sheep from Germany, should now enter the lists as 
competitors against them. And when a rumor began to gain ground 
that the sub - committee were disposed to award one and then two first 
prizes to the American Merinos, it caused loud expressions of dissatis- 
faction, which were promptly re-echoed in the German newspapers. 
Notwithstanding, and in defiance of all of this, the general committee 
with manly independence ratified the action of the sub-committee by a 
unanimous vote. On the official promulgation of the decision, the 
previous censures took the form of accusations. It was asserted that 
the committee had been unduly influenced. Thereupon Col. Danid 
Needham, Corresponding Secretary of the Vermont State Agricultural 
Society, who was present at the Exhibition as the Commissioner of the 
State of Vermont, after conferring with the U. S. Commissioner, Gov. 
Wright, and Mr. Campbell, published a card in the German tongue, 
proposing a sweepstakes open to all the previous competitors — the 
award to be made by a new committee, to be selected by the German 
association under whose auspices and direction the International 
Exhibition took place. Col. Needham's proposal was that each com- 
petitor pay an entrance fee of $10; and if there were less than ten entries 
he offered himself to make up the prize to $100. This offer, (substantially 
a challenge to a new trial,) was posted and circulated among all the 
competitors. Mr. Campbell immediately entered his sheep, but his was 
tlie only entry ! This rendered the triumph of the American Merinos 
absolute and undeniable; and the press and public, with that hearty 
honesty which always marks the German national character, did ample 
justice to the Americans and to the American sheep. Mr. Campbell 
sold his prize sheep, twelve in number, to a Prussian nobleman for $5,000. 



APPENDIX H. 439 

The highest priced foreign Merino sold at the Exhibition fetched but £40, 
or $200. The preceding facts are stated on the personal authority of 
Mr. Campbell and Col. Needham. 

I cannot here withhold a pleasing fact which strikingly evidences 
the fairness and the modesty of the victorious exhibitor at Hamburg. 
Col. Needham informs me that Mr. Campbell on all occasions, signified 
to the breeders of Germany and France, and requested him, (Col. 
Needham,) to signify that he was not the founder or leading breeder of 
the improved family of American Merinos, which his (Mr. Campbell's,) 
sheep chiefly represented — but that this honor belonged to Mr. Hammond. 
Mr. C.'s show sheep were, if I remember aright, all from his celebrated 
ram " Old Grimes," bred by Mr. Hammond and got by his " Sweep- 
stakes." "Old Grimes" competed against his sire in the great 
sweepstakes at the Vermont State Fair of 1861, and stood second. He 
is remarkable for individual excellence and as a stock getter. 

I was one of those consulted by Mr. Campbell in reference to taking 
American Merinos to the International Exhibition, and I strongly 
encouraged him to do so. I had just as little doubt of their success then 
as now, provided they could receive fair play ; and I never for an instant 
doubted that among the many Germans they would receive the same 
fair play which our stock and products have received at all these World's 
Fairs. In Germany as in England, we encountered some prejudice — 
but when the time for official action arrived, it always gave way like a 
morning mist before the broad, bright sun of personal and official 
honor. 



LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 



Page. 

Merino Ram " Sweepstakes," Frontispiece 

Spanish Wool, 16 

Saxon Ram, 26 

Merino Ewe, (Imported Paular,) 31 

Merino Ewe, (Old Fashioned,) 34 

Silesian Merino Ram, 38 

Group of Silesian Ewes, 41 

Leicester Ram, 45 

Leicester Ewe, 47 

Cotswold Ram,. . . 48 

Cotswold Ewe, 50 

South Down Ram, 56 

South Down Ewes, 57 

Shropshire Down Ram, 62 

Shropshire Down Ewe, 64 

Shepherd's Crook, 139 

Tagging, illustrated, 141 

Toe - Nippers, 169 

Folding Tables, 173 

Fleece Ready for Press, 173 

Fleece in Press, 174 

Wool Press, 174 

Tattooing Instruments, (three figures,) 184 

Ears Tattooed, 184 

Metal Ear-Mark, 185 

Dipping Box, 187 

Shed of Poles 211 

Sheep Barn, with Open Sheds, 213 

Ground Plan of Sheep Barn and Yards, 217 

Ground Plan of a Sheep Establishment, 218 

Slatted Box Rack, 230 

Wall Rack and Trough 231 

End View of Wall Rack and Trough, 232 

Skull of a Sheep, 265 

Teeth of the Sheep, 266 

Section of Sheep's Head, 273 

Gr.d-Fly of the Sheep, 274 

The •' Grub " or Larva of the Gad -Fly, (three figures,) 274 

The Stomachs, 294 

Internal Appearance of Stomachs 295 

The Intestines and Mesentary, 303 

Spanish Sheep Dog, 397 

The Scotch Sheep Dog, or Colley, 409 

The English Sheep, or Drover's Dog 407 



INDEX. 



Abortion, 329. 

Abscess, 382. 

Adams, Seth imports Merinos into United 

States, 22. 
Allen, A. B. describes first French Merinos 
imported into United States, 35. 
recommends tar, sulphur and alum for 
diseased sheep, 194. 
Anatomy of the sheep, 264, et seq, 
cut of skeleton. 264. 
cut of skull, 265. 
cut of teeth, 266. 

cut of section of sheep's head, 273. 
the omentums described, 293. 
cut of external appearance of stomachs, 

294. 
cut of internal appearance of stomachs, 

295. 
stomachs and their functions described, 

295. 
mode of introducing medicines into 

the stomach, 299. 
cut of the intestines, 303. 
Apoplexy, 280. 
Arlington long-wooled sheep, origin of 44, 

54. 
Atwood. Stephen, his family of Merinos 
described, 28, 29. 
his family of Merinos compared with 

Mr. Jarvis' 28. 
their improvement in other hands, 29, 

30. 
a strict in-and-in breeder, 120. 
the improved Psulars receive a cross 
from his flock, 417-419. 



B 



Baker, the Messrs., their experiments in 
crossing French and American Me- 
rinos, 129 note. 
Bakewell, Robert, the great improver of 
Leicester sheep, 45. 

an in-and-in breeder, 46, 119. 

in-and-in breeding formed an element 
of his success, 122. 

origin of his flock not probably drawn 
from different breeds, 133. 

his sheep improved by Cotswold blood, 
47, 133. 

19* 



Bakewell, Robert, he purposely rotted 

sheep, 376. 
Barns for sheep, construction of, 212-219. 
cuts of 213, 217, 218. 
should be cleaned out in winter, 219. 
Beanes, Capt., imports Tees water and 

South Down sheep, 44 note. 
Bedford, Dr., on the necessity of exercise, 

etc., to pregnant females, 222. 
Beets as sheep feed, 243. 
Bement, Caleb N., his account of C. Dunn's 

flock, 44 note. 
Biflex Canal, disease of, 354, 355. 
Bigelow, Dr., account of St. Johns-wort. 

276. 
Black-faced Scotch sheep described, 51. 
introduced into the United States by 

Samuel Campbell, 52. 
weight of their fleeces, 52. 
imported by Sanford Howard, 52. 
Blacklock, Mr., cited in regard to diseases 

of sheep, 277, 316. 
Blain, 291, 292. 
Blanchard, H., introduces the Wool Depot 

system, 177. 
Bleeding, place for, 314, 315. 

mode of performing, 314, 315. 
Boardman, S. P., states cost of getting 
wool and other products to market 
from Illinois, 251 note, 
his article on prairie sheep husbandry. 
260. 
Brain, hydatid on, 277-279. 
water on, 279, 280. 
inflammation of the, 281. 
Braxy, 311. 

Breeding, in-and-in, extent of among im- 
proved Infantados, 30. 
definition of the term, 101. 
like produces like, 101. 
breeding back, 101. 
causes of hereditary transmission 
partly controllable, 101, 102. 
likeness inherited with uniformity 

among full bloods, 102. 
mongrels, etc., do not transmit like- 
ness with uniformity, 102. 
counteracting the defects of one parent 
by the excellencies of the otiier, 103. 
hereditary predispositions to be re 

garded, 103. 
accidental characteristics, how ao 
counted for, 103, 104. 



442 



INDEX. 



Breeding, accidental characteristics are 
sometimes vigorously reproduced 
and become established, 103-106. 

are peculiarities acquired after birth 
transmissable ? 103 note. 

accidental characteristics less trans- 
missable when opposed to the special 
ones of the breed, 105. 

breeding between animals possessing 
the same defect to be avoided, 106. 

relative Influence of sire and dam on 
progeny, 106. 

the theory that the animal organiza- 
tion is transmitted by halves, 107. 

Mr. Walker's modification of this 
theory, 107, et seq. 

Mr. Spooner's views on the same sub 
ject, 107, et seq. 

the foregoing theories examined, 107- 
110. 

properties transmitted by degrees, not 
by halves, 109. 

mode of their transmission, 109. 

the ram oftenest transmits his external 
structure to progeny, 109, 110. 

the ram oftenest gives size and a part 
of the qualities of the fleece, 110. 

Influence of the ewe on the progeny, 
110. 

causes of the ram's superiority in this 
particular, 110, et seq. 

influence of higher breeding among 
full bloods, 111, 112. 

influence of pure over grade, etc., 
blood, 111. 

why rams of same blood differ in 
transmitting their qualities, 111. 

influence of physical and sexual vigor, 
112. 

indications of these in the ram, 112 
note, 113. 

ability of rams to procreate at differ- 
ent ages, 113. 

period of procreation in Merino, 113. 

longevity of different breeds, 113, 114. 

does the male which first impregnates 
a female influence her subsequent 
offspring? 114 

Mr. Cline's theory that small males 
and large females should be coupled, 
114, 115. 

in-and-in breeding, how the term is 
used in this work, 116. 

Sir John Sebright's views, and his 
use of this term, 116-118. 

prejudice against breeding in-and-in 
in the United States, 116. 

its effect where hereditary diseases 
prevail, 117. 

it results from Divine ordination in 
many instances, 117, 118. 

difference between men and brutes in 
this particular, 118. 

difference between wild and domesti- 
cated brutes in this particular, 118. 

under what circumstances in-and-in 
breeding is fatal, 118. 

under what circumstances it is innoc- 
uous, 118. 

eminent foreign in-and-in breeders, 119. 



Breeding, great extent of their in-and-in 

breeding, 119 note, 
it formed an important element of 

their success, 122. 
it is almost necessary in some cases, 

122. 
it is not safe for ordinary breeders, 122. 
more have failed than have succeeded 

in it, 123. 
is it more dangerous among grade ani- 
mals f 123. 
crossing breeds and families — (For 

everything connected with crossing 

see Cross - Breeding), 
expedient to adhere to one breed and 

family if it possesses proper ele- 
ments of improvement, 131. 
the most splendid successes have been 

won in this way, 131, and note, 
great skill of English breeders in 

breeding mutton sheep, 132 note, 
breeding lambs for butcher, 133, 134. 
breeding mutton sheep on the prairies, 

135. 
when cross-breeding is expedient, and 

when inexpedient generally, 136-138. 
Breeds of sheep best adapted to different 

situations, 82-90. 
rules for determining that adaptation, 

82-90. 
influence of markets, 82-85. 
influence of climate, 85, 86. 
influence of vegetation, 86-88. 
influence of soils, 88, 89. 
influence of herding, 89. 
influence of associated branches of 

husbandry, 89, 90. 
comparative hardiness of English, 87. 
working qualities of different breeds,87. 
crossing between different — (see Cross- 

Breeding.) 
longevity of different, 113. 
Broad -Tailed sheep introduced into the 

United States. 53. 
bred pure in South Carolina, 53. 
Bronchitis, 326. 
Brugnone cited in regard to diseases of 

sheep, 277-302. 
Bruises and strains, 382. 
Buignot inoculates for small pox, 349. 
Burs should be eradicated from pastures, 

142. 
the different kinds of, injurious to 

wool, 142. • 



C 



Campbell, George, takes Merinos to 

World's Fair at Hamburg, 75. 
length of wool on sheep taken to 

World's Fair, 75. 
pedigrees of the sheep, 76. 
his mode of tattooing sheep, 184. 
his sheep victorious at the World's 

Fair, 438, 439. 
his honorable conduct, 439. 
pedigree of his stock ram, 439. 
Campbell, Samuel, and James Brodie, 

import Leicester sheep, 47. 



INDEX. 



443 



Campbell, Samuel, and James Brodie, cuts 
of a ram and ewe belonging to them, 
45, 47. 
import Cheviot sheep, 52. 
Canada Breeders of, 351. 
Carcass the first point to be regarded in 
sheep, 69. 
proper form and size of the Merino, 
6.9. 
Carrots as sheep feed, 243. 
Castration, 161. 
Catarrh, 268, 318, 319. 

Malignant epizootic, 319-324. 
Catching and handling sheep, proper mode 

of, 131-141. 
Chamberlain, William, his account of the 
present Merinos in Spain, 17, 18. 
introduces Silesian Merinos into the 

United States, 39. 
his description of his sheep, 39-42. 
cut of a group of his ewes, 41. 
a close in-and-in breeder, 120. 
time he has his lambs yeaned, 143 note 
Chevoit sheep introduced into the United 
States, 52. 
character of the unimproved family, 52 
the improved family described, 52, 53. 
Chilled Lambs, how treated, 148, 149. 
Chinese, or Nankin sheep in the United 

States, 54. 
Choking, 292, 293. 
Clapp, the Messrs., their experiments in 
crossing French and American Meri- 
nos, 129 note. 
Clark, Bracy, cited in regard to diseases of 

sheep, 274, 275. 
Clift, Leonard D., imports Lincoln sheep 
in 1835, 50. 
character of his sheep, 50, 
Climate to be regarded in selecting a breed 

of sheep, §5, 86. 
Cline, Mr., his views on disparity in size 

of sire and dam in breeding, 114. 
Closed Teats, 157. 
Clover, as sheep feed, 235, 237, 246. 
Clumps of trees in pastures, utility of, 212. 
Colic, 310. 
Colley, (See Dog.) 

Collins, D. C, introduces French Merinos 
in the United States, 34. 
description of his she ep, 35. 
Coloring Sheep artificially, a fraud, 81 
Confinement, effect of on pregnant ewes, 

222, 223. 
Congenital Goitre, or swelled neck, 152- 

154. 
Constipation of sheep, 221, 228, 310. 

of young lambs, 149. 
Consumption, 327, 328, 379. 
Corning, Erastus, with Wm. H. Sotham, 

imports Cotswold sheep, 48. 
Cornstalks as sheep feed, 245, 258. 
Cossit, Capt. Davis, his remarkable suc- 
cess in crossing Infantado and Saxon 
Merinos, 130 and note, 
pedigree of his ram, " Wrinkly 3d," 
415. 
Costiveness, (See Constipation.) 
Cotswold Sheep introduced into the Uni- 
ted States about 35 years since, 48. 



Cotswold Sheep, imported by Mr. Dunn in 
1832, 48. 

imported by Messrs. Corning & Sotham 
in 1840, 48. 

imported by Henry G. White, 49. 

described by Mr. Spooner, 49. 
Crook, shepherd's, manner of using, 139. 

cut of, 139, 
Cross-breeding, meaning of term as used 
in this book, 124. 

effects of between the Merinos and 
coarse breeds, 124. 

the Merino unimprovable by such a 
cross, 124. 

the Merino cross improves coarse 
sheep for certain purposes, 125. 

the cross between Merino and mutton 
sheep results in failure, 124, 125, 

the cross between the Merino and long 
wools, 125. 

the cross between the Merino and 
Downs, 125. 

permanent intermediate varieties un- 
attainable, 125. 

peculiar tenacity of hereditary trans- 
mission in the Merino, 125. 

due probably to its great purity and 
antiquity of blood, 125 note. 

coarse breeds can be merged in it, 126. 

grade flocks started in Texas, 126. 

successful cross between Merino and 
Mexican sheep, 126. 

experience of Mr. Kendall in this par- 
ticular, 126, note. 

choice rams desirable in such a cross , 
127. 

grades never equal to pure Merinos, 
127. 

French ideas on this subject, 127. 

German ideas on same subject, 127. 

degrees of blood in ascending crosses 
reckoned, 127 note. 

crossing different families of Merinos, 
127-130. 

effect of in the French Merino, 128. 

effect of, in Mr. Jarvis' flock, 128. 

effect of, in the Rich or improved Pau- 
lars, 128 and note. 

effect of in the Silesian Merinos of 
the United States, 128, 129. 

between the American and French 
Merino, 129 and note. 

between the American and Saxon Me- 
rino, 129. 

remarkable result of an improved In- 
fantado and Saxon cross, 130 and 
note. 

inexpediency of crossing for the sake 
of crossing, 130. 131. 

ordinary reasons for crossing unfound- 
ed, 131. 

bad effects of frequent and unmeaning 
crosses, 131. 

always better to adhere to one breed 
and family if it contains the elements 
of improvement, 131. 

the most splendid successes have been 
secured in this way, 131, and note. 

crossing between English breeds and 
families, 132. 



444 



INDEX. 



Cross-breeding, the Hampshire, Shropshire 
and Oxfordshire Downs produced in 
this way. 132. 
but the fuilures in blending breeds 

have been far more numerous, 132. 
skill of the English breeders, 132 note, 
successful to obtain larger and earlier 

lambs for the butcher, 133. 
expediency of thus crossing with local 

families, 134. 
Mr. Thome's experience in this par- 
ticular, 134, 135 note, 
an analogous cross for mutton raising 

expedient in Western States, 135. 
the English family which should be 

selected for this purpose, 135,136. 
the cross should stop with the first 

one, 134. 

recapitulation, showing when crossing 

is expedient, and when inexpedient, 

13(5-138. 

Crossing, (See Cross-breeding.) 

Cutaneous Diseases, unnamed ones, 344, 

345. 
Cuts, 380. 
Cutting teeth, 150. 
Cystitis, 337. 



D 



D'Arboval Hurtel cited in regard to dis 

eases of Sheep, 314, 349, 350. 
Darlington, Dr. his account of St. John's- 

wort, 269. 
Darwin, M., his account of South Ameri- 
can sheep-dogs, 405. 
Daubenton's directions for bleeding sheep, 

314. 
Delafond, Mr., on history of small pox, 349. 
Delessert, M., imports Merinos into United 

States, 22. 
Dewees, Dr., on proper treatment of preg- 
nant lemales, 336. 
Diarrhea, 306-308, 380. 

in young lambs, 151. 
Dickens, Mr., cited in regard to diseases of 

sheep, 337. 
Dick, Professor, on hoof-rot, 358 note. 
Diseases and wounds of Sheep, 261, et segr. 
comparatively small number of in Uni- 
ted States, 261, 262. 
low type of American sheep diseases, 

262. 
Abortion, 329. 
Abscess, 382. 
Apoplexy, 280. 
Biflex Canal, disease of 354. 
Blain, 291, 292. 
Braxy, or inflammation of the bowels, 

311. 
Bronchitis, 326. 
Bruises and Strains, 382. 
Catarrh, 268, 318, 319. 
Catarrh, malignant epizootic, 319-324 
Choking, 292, 293. 
Cold (see Catarrh.) 
Colic, 310. 

Constipation, 221, 228, 310. 
Constipation in young lambs, 149, 150 
Consumption, 327, 323, 379. 



Diseases and wounds of Sheep, Costive- 
ness, (see Constipation.) 
Cutaneous diseases, unnamed ones, 

344,345. 
Cuts, 380. 
Cystitis, (see Inflammation of the 

bladder.) 
Diarrhea, 306-308, 380. 
Diarrhea in young lambs, 151. 
Distemper, the, 324. 
Dog Bites, 381. 

Dropsy, acute, or Red Water, 304. 
Dysentery, 308-310, 379, 380. 
Enteritis, 306. 
Epilepsy, 282, 283, 380. 
Epizootic of 1846-47, 319 et seq. 
Eye, inflammation of, 272. 
Fever, 316. 

Fever, inflammatory, 316, 317. 
Fever, malignant inflammatory, 317, 

318. 
Fever, parturient, 331-337. 
Fever, puerperal, 331-337. 
Fever, typhus, 318. 
Foot-rot— (see Hoof-Rot.) 

Fouls, 356. 

Fractures, 354. 

Garget, 157, 330. 

Gravel, &55. 

Grub in the head, 273, 277. 

Goitre, congenital, 152, 151. 

Head, Grub in, 273-277. 

Hereditary diseases, 379, 380. 

Hoof-Rot, 356-371, 381. 

Hoove. 299-301. 

Hydatid on the Brain, 277-279. 3S0. 

Ignis Sacer. 344. 

Inflammation of cellular tissue under 
the tongue— (see Blain.) 

Inflammation of the bladder. 337. 

Inflammation of the brain, 281. 

Inflammation of the coats of the in- 
testines, 306. 

Inflammation of the Eye 272. 

Inflammation of the lungs, (sec Pneu- 
monia.) 

Inflammation of the udder, (see Gar- 
get.) 

Inversion of the womb, 145 , 330. 

La Clavelee, (see Small-pox.) 

Lameness, 355, 356. 

Madness, (see Rabies.) 

Obstructions of the gullet, 292, 293. 

Opthalmia, 272, 279. 

Palsy, 283. 

Parturient fever, 331-337. 

Phthisis, (see Consumption.) 

Pining, 312. 

Pinning, 151. 

Pleurisy, (see Pleuritis.) 

Pleuritis, 326, 327. 

Pneumonia, 325, 379. 

Poisons, 301, 302. 

Puerperal fever, 331-337. 

Babies, 283-290. 

Rheumatism, 155, 156, 379. 

Rot, the 372-378. 

Rot, cut of the Fluke, 374. 

Scab, erysipelatous 344. 
Scab, the 338, 343. 



INDEX. 



445 



Diseases and wounds of Sheep, Scours (see 
Diarrhea.) 

Scrofula, 378, 380. 

Small-pox, 345-353. 

Sore Face, 269-271. 

Sprains, 382. 

Stretches, 310. 

Swelled Head, 268. 

Swelled Lips, 271. 

Swelled Neck, 152, 154, 380. 

Teeth, cutting of the 150. 

Tetanus, or Locked-Jaw, 281, 282. 

Variola Ovina — (see Small-pox,) 

Water on the brain, 279, 280. 

Wild Fire, 344. 

Worms, 312. 

Wounds, 380-382 

Wounds, lacerated and contused, 381. 

Wounds, poisoned, 381, 382. 

Wounds, punctured, 381. 
Disowning Lambs, 158, 159. 
Distemper, the, 324. 
Docking Lambs, 160, 161. 
Dog, bites of the, 381. 

the dog, in connection with sheep, 393, 
et seq. 

injuries inflicted by, on sheep, 393-396. 

sheep dog described by Buffon, 396. 

Spanish, 397. 

Hungarian, 400. 

French, 401. 

Mexican, 401-405. 

South American, 405, 406. 

other large races, 406. 

English, or drover's, 407. 

Scotch, or Colley, 408-410. 

mongrel Colley, a sheep killer, 410. 

accustoming the sheep to the dog, 411. 
Down Sheep, (see South Downs, Hamp- 
shire Downs, Shropshire Downs and 
Oxfordshire Downs.) 
Drafting and selection, in nocks, 179. 
Dropsy, acute, 304. 
Drying off ewes, 158. 
Dun, Finlay, on hereditary diseases, 379, 

380. 
Dunn, Christopher, origin of his Leicester 
flock, 44. 

character of his flock, 44 note. 

crosses it with Cotswold rams, 48. 
Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, cited pas 

sim. 
Dupont de Nemours, imports Merinos into 

United States, 22. 
Dysentery, 308-310, 379, 380. 

E 

Elithorp, Prosper, length of Ms Merino 

wool, 76. 
crosses the Paular and Infantado sheep, 

128 note, 
his remedy for stretches, 310. 
his connection with the origin of the 

improved Paular family, 417-419. 
furnishes an account of origin of, 419. 
Ellman, Mr., his success inbreeding South 

Down sheep, 55 et seq. 
followed in-and-in breeding, 119. 
it was an element of his success, 122. 



Ely, David, his " little- eared " sheep, 104. 
English Breeders, their great skill in 

breeding mutton sheep, 132 note. 
Enteritis, 306. 
Epilepsy, 282, 283, 380. 
Epizootic among sheep in 1846-47, 319, et 
seq. 
the lamb epizootic of 1862, 154, 226. 
the term defined, 226 note. 
Escurial Merino, 14. 
Ewe, influence of on progeny, 110. 

fall feed and shelter necessary for, 202- 

205. 
effect of neglect in this particular, 203, 

204. 
" hunger rot " described, 203, 204. 
subject to other diseases when in low 

condition, 204. 
does not take the ram uniformly when 

poor, 205. 
selection of for the ram, 205, 206. 
coupling with the ram, modes of, 206, 

207. 
period of gestation in, 207. 
want of sagacity in protecting its 

young, 213. 
injurious effects of close confinement 

on, 222, et seq. 
should not be confined to dry feed in 

winter, 222, et seq. 
its prolificacy affected thereby, 222 et 
seq. 
Exercise important for pregnant ewes, 223, 

226. 
Experiments in fattening sheep, 418- 

425. 
Eye, inflammation of, 272. 



F 

Face, sore, 269-271. 

Fall management of sheep, (see manage- 
ment of sheep in fall). 
Fat-Kumped sheep introduced into the 

United States, 53. 
Fattening Sheep, 418-425. 
Fay, Richard S., imports Shropshire sheep 
into United Staffs, 66. 
character of his sheep, 66, 67. 
Feed, different values of, for fattening, 420- 
426. 
experiments in mixing, 419 et seq. 
Feeds for sheep— (see Fodder.) 
Feeding sheep, Mr. Pawlett's experiments 

in, 418-425. 
Felting property of wool, how produced, 

16. 
Fences for sheep, value of different, 233, 

245. 
Fever, 316. 

inflammatory, 316, 317. 
malignant inflammatory, 317, 318. 
typhus, 318. 
parturient, 331-&37. 
puerperal, (see fever parturient). 
Fischer, Ferdinand, established the family 
of Merinos, now termed Silesian in 
the United States, 39. 
Fischer Louis, son of preceding, continues 
the flock, 39. 



440 



INDEX. 



Fischer, Louis, effect of his cross between 
the Negretti and Infantado, 128, 129 

Fleece, proper characteristics of in a Me 
rino, 71, 72. 

Fleischmann, Charles L., his drawing of a 
Saxon ram, 26. 
his statements about German cross- 
bred sheep, 127. 
his drawings of marking instruments, 
184. 

Fodder for sheep, value of different, 233 - 
245. 

Folds, or wrinkles, proper amount in the 
skin of the Merino, 70, 71. 

Forshey, Caleb G., on the climatology of 
Texas, 428 et seq. 

Foster, William, first introduced Merinos 
into United States, 22. 

Foot -Rot, (see Hoof -Rot.) 

Fouls, 356- 

Fractures, 254. 



G 



Gad - fly of the sheep, cut of, 274. 
cut of LarvaB of, 274. 
their effect on sheep, (see Grub in the 

Head.) 
Garget, 157. 

Gayot, inoculates for small - pox, 350. 
Gasparin, cited in regard to sheep diseases, 

283, 314. 
Gaudeloupe Merino, 14. 
Geddes, James, cut of his Silesian Merino 

ram " Carl," 38. 
cut of his improved wool - press, 174. 
Geddes, Hon. George, experiments in feed- 
ing beets to sheep, 243. 
Germany. Breeders of, at World's Fair, 

438, 439. 
Gestation, period of in the ewe, 207. 
Gilbert, his description of the origin of 

the Rambouillet flock, 19. 
Girard, inoculates for small - pox, 349. 
Goitre, congenital, 152, 154. 
Gold Drop, Mr. Hammond's ram, pedigree 

of, 121, 122. •» 
Goodale, S. L., his work on the principles 

of breeding, 114 note, 123. 
Gossip, George H. and Brother, import 

Lincoln sheep into the U. States, 50. 
Gragnier inoculates for small pox, 349. 
Grasses, most valuable ones for sheep, 233, 

234, 235, 237. 
Gravel, 355. 

Grease in wool — (see Yolk.) 
Greaves, Mr. W., cited in regard to sheep 

diseases, 305. 
Greer, W. F., in regard to hoof-rot, 371. 
Grennel, James S., his report on sheep 

husbandry to the Massachusetts 

State Board of Agriculture, 51. 
his account of New Oxfordshire sheep, 

51. 
his statement of comparative waste in 

cooking beef and mutton, 83. 
his statement of increase of sheep 

bought in Boston market between 

1839 and 1859, 84. 
his account of sheep poisons, 301 



Grlnnel, J. B., his statement of cost of get- 
ting wool and other products to mar- 
ket from Iowa, 251 note, 
his article on prairie sheep husbandry, 
260. 

Grove, Henry D., his account of importa- 
tions of Saxon sheep, 25. 
weight of fleeces of his Saxon flock, 

25 note, 
his account of origin of the "little 
eared" sheep, 104. 

Grognier, Prof., his account of French 
sheep dogs, 401. 

Grnb in the head, 273-277. 

Guillaume inoculates for small-pox, 349. 

Gullet, obstructions of, 292, 293. 

Gum on wool — (see Yolk.) 



H 



Hammond, Edwin, commences his flock 
with Infantado or Atwood sheep, 29, 
30. 
the great improver of the Infantadog, 

29. 
present character of his flock, 29, 30. 
his ram Sweepstakes — (the frontis- 
piece of this volume,) 29. 
length of Sweepstakes' wool, 76. 
pedigree of Sweepstakes, 121. 
description of Sweepstakes, 413. 
the points which Mr. H. has bred 
for, 30. 
the extent of his in - and - in breed- 
ing, 30, 120. 
pedigrees of his leading stock rams 

and ewes, 14, 122. 
in - and - in breeding a lever of his suc- 
cess, 122. 

plan of his sheep establishment, 218. 
description of his leading animals, and 
course of breeding, 412-416. 
Hampshire Downs described by Professor 
Wilson, 59, 60. 
Mr. Spooner's account of their origin 
and blood, 60, 61. 
Handling Sheep— (see Catching and Hand- 
ling.) 

Harrison, Dr., on symptoms of rot, 372. 
Head, grub in, 273-277. 

swelled, 268. 
Herding, capacity for In different breeds 

of sheep, 89. 
Hereditary Diseases, 379, 380. 
Hogg, James, cited in regard to diseases of 

sheep, 268, 278, 291, 312, 364. 
Hoof-Rot, 356-371, 380. 
Hoofs, shortening of the, 168, 169. 

cut of toe-nippers, 169. 
Hoove, 299-301. 

Horns on sheep, shortening, etc., 189. 
Howard, Charles, describes origin of 

Shropshire Downs, 63, 64. 
Howard, Sanford, imports Cheviot sheep, 

52. 

Huard inoculates for small-pox, 349. 
Humphreys, David, imports Merinos into 
the United States, 23. 
breeds in-and-in, 120. 



INDEX. 



447 



Humrickhouse, T. S., Ms inquiries as to 
present flocks of Spain, 16. 

" Hunger-Rot," how produced, 203, 204. 

Hydatid on the brain, 277-279, 380. 

Hyde, Professor, his dissections of sheep, 
290, 321. 



In-and-in breeding — (see breeding in-and 

in.) 
Ignis Sacer, 344. 

Illinois, sheep husbandry in, 248, et seq. 
Infantado Merinos in Spain, 14. 

the improved Infantados of the United 

States, 28, et seq. 
closely bred in-and-in in the United 

States, 120. 
one of the families on which the Amer 

ican Silesian are based, 129. 
leading animals of the improved fam- 
ily, 412-416. 
Inflammation of the eye, 272. 
of the brain, 281. 
of cellular tissue under the tongue, 

(see Blain.) 
of coats of intestines, 306. 
of the bowels, 311. 
of the lungs, 325. 
of the bronchial tubes, 326. 
of the udder, 157, 330. 
of the bladder, 337. 
Injections, 150. 

Inoculation for small-pox, 349, et seq. 
Iowa, starting a sheep establishment in, 

427, 428. 
International Exhibition at Hamburg, 438. 
triumph of American Merinos at, 438, 
439. 
Inverted womb, how treated, 145. 



Jarvis, William, imports Merinos into the 
United States, 23, 24. 

crosses them with the Saxons, 24. 

breeds back, but crosses his Merino 
families, 24. 

weight of his fleeces and prices of his 
wool, 24. 

his Merinos established as a family, 27. 

his sheep described, 27. 

effect of his crossing different fami- 
lies, 128. 

his remedy for hoof-rot, 363. 

his family crossed with the Improved 
Paulars, 417, 418. 
John's-wort — (see St. John's-wort.) 



Kendall, George Wilkins, the wintering of 

his sheep in 1860, 89. 
his successful cross between Merinos 

and Mexican sheep, 126 note, 
mean temperature near his residence, 

249 note, 
his account of Mexican sheep dogs, 

404. 



Klippart, John H., his statement of the 
number of sheep killed by dogs in 
Ohio, 393-396. 



La Clavelee — (see small-pox.) 
Lambs, management and diseases of in 
spring — (see Spring Management.) 
management of in fall, after weaning, 

198-201. 
importance of fall shelter for, 201. 
Lambing, proper time for, 142. 
proper place for, 143. 
mechanical assistance in, 144. 
administering cordials, etc., during, 
145. 
Lameness from traveling — (see Travel 

Sore.) 
Langlois inoculates for small-pox, 349. 
Lasteyrie, his description of the Merino 
families, 14. 
his account of the weight of French 
Merino fleeces, 19. 
Lax, Mr., imports Leicester sheep into the 

United States, 44. 
Leicester sheep, 43. 

probably introduced into United States 

by Gen. Washington, 44. 
imported by Mr. Lax, 44. 
imported by Capt. Beanes, 44. 
cut of Messrs. Campbell & Brodie's 

ram, 45. 
cut of one of their ewes, 47. 
Prof. Wilson's description of the Lei- 

cesters, 45-47. 
their origin, 45. 
Mr. Bakewell selected from different 

families, 46. 
he then bred in-and-in, 46. 
not so hardy as the other large breeds, 

46. 
their early maturity, 46. 
now improved by a dip of Cotswold 
blood, 47, 133. 
Leonesa, the best Spanish families of the 

Merino, so called, 14. 
Lewis, Dr., statement regarding Spanish 

sheep dogs, 399. 
Lincolnshire sheep imported into the 
United States by Leonard D. Clift, 50. 
imported by Geo. H. Gossip & Brother, 

50. 
character of the imported sheep, 50. 
Lips, swelled, 271. 
Livermore, George, table of wool prices 

furnished by him, 92-94. 
Livingston ; Robert R., states weight of 
Spanish fleeces, 16. 
imports Merinos into United States, 22. 
character of their descendants, 23. 
weight of his Merino fleeces, 23. 
cited in regard to diseases, 340, 341. 
on proportion of wool to surface, 433. 
Locked -jaw, 281, 282. 
Longevity of different breeds, 113. 
Loveland, R. A., his account of starting 
a sheep establishment in the new 
Western States, 427, 428. 



448 



INDEX. 



Lyman. J. H., his account of Mexican 
shoep dogs, 401-404. 

M 

Madness — (see Rabies.) 
Maggots on sheep, how destroyed, 189, 190. 
Management of sheep in spring, 139. 
catching and handling, 139-141. 
tagging, 141, 142. 

burs in pastures to be eradicated, 142. 
lambing, 142, 143. 
proper place for lambing, 143, 144. 
mechanical assistance in lambing, 144 

146. 
inverted womb, how treated, 145, 146. 
management of new-born lambs, 146. 
artificial feeding of lambs, 146-148. 
chilled lambs, 148, 149. 
constipation or costiveness of lambs, 

how treated, 149, 150. 
cutting teeth, 150. 
pinning, how treated, 151. 
diarrhea or purging of lambs, how 

treated. 151. 
congenital goitre, or swelled neck. 152- 

154. 
imperfectly developed lambs, 154, 155. 
rheumatism in lambs. 155. 156. 
treatment of ewe after lambing, 156, 

157. 
closed teats, 157. 
inflamed udder, 157. 
drying off ewes, 158. 
disowning lambs, 158, 159. 
pens, 159. 

foster lambs, 159, 160. 
docking lambs, 160, 161. 
castration of lambs, 161. 
Management of sheep in summer, 163-197 
modes of washing sheep, 163, 164. 
utility of washing sheep, 163, 168. 
shortening the hoof, 168, 169. 
cut of toe-nippers, 169. 
time between washing and shearing, 

170. 
shearing, 170-172. 

stubble shearing and trimming, 172. 
shearing lambs and shearing sheep 

semi-annually, 172. 
doing up wool, 173-175. 
cut of folding table, 173. 
cut of fleece ready for press, 173. 
cut of fleece in press, 174. 
cut of wool-press, 174. 
frauds in doing up wool, 175. 
storing wool, 176. 
place for selling wool, 177. 
wool depots and commission stores, 

177. 
sacking wool, 177. 
drafting and selection of flock, 179. 
registration, 180. 
marking and numbering, 182-186. 
Von Thaer's mode of, 183. 
German mode of tattooing, 183. 
a third mode of marking, 184. 
a fourth mode of marking, 185. 
cut of instruments for tattooing, 184. 



Management of sheep in summer, 163-197. 
cut of ears tattooed. 184. 
cut of copper ear marks, 185. 
storms after shearing, 186. 
sun-scald, 186. 

ticks, how destroyed, 187-189. 
cut of dipping box, 187. 
shortening horns, etc., 189. M 

maggots, 189, 190. 
confining rams, 190, 191. 
training rams, 191. 
fences, care of, 192. 
salt necessary for sheep, 192. 
tar, sulphur, alum, etc., for sheep, 193. 
water in pastures, 194. 
shade in pastures, 195. 
housing sheep in summer, 195. 
pampering sheep, 196, 197. 
Management of sheep in the fall, 197-210. 
weaning and fall feeding lambs, 197- 

201. 
sheltering lambs in fall, 201. 
fall feeding and sheltering breeding 

ewes, 202-205. 
selecting ewes for the ram, 205, 206. 
coupling, 206, 207. 
period of gestation, 207. 
management of rams during coupling, 

207, 209. 
dividing flocks for winter, 209, 210. 
Management of sheep in winter, 210-247. 
winter shelter, 211. 
temporary sheds, 211, 
cut of shed of poles, 211. 
clumps of trees and stalls, 212. 
hay barns with open sheds, 212. 
sheep barns or stables, 214, 219. 
cut of sheep barn and yards. 217. 
cut of a sheep establishment, 218. 
cleaning out stables in winter, 219. 
yards, how arranged, etc., 220. 
littering yards, 220. 
confining sheep in yards and to dry 

feed, 221-228. 
hay racks, 229. 
cut of slatted box rack, 229. 
cut of wall rack and trough, 230. 
cut of end view of wall rack and 

trough, 231. 
water for sheep in winter, 232. 
amount of food consumed by sheep in 

winter, 233. 
value of different fodders, 233, 243. 
nutritive equivalents, 234. 
table of nutritive equivalents, 235. 
proportion in which different nutri- 
ment increases live weight, wool 

and tallow, 236, 238. 
cost and economy of the different 

kinds of, 238, et seq. 
experiments in feeding, 239-242. 
mixed feeds, 243-245. 
fattening sheep in winter, 245, 246. 
regularity in feeding, 246, 247. 
Salt in winter, 247. 
Management of Sheep on Prairies — (see 

Prairie Sheep Husbandry.) 
Markets, influence of, in determining the 

selection of a breed, 82. 



INDEX. 



449 



Marking and numbering sheep, different 

modes of, 182-186. 
Marshall, Gen. O. F., his mode of salting 

sheep in winter, 247. 
Marshes, access to not dangerous to sheep 

in Northern States, 88, — (see Salt 

Marshes.) 
Mauchamp Merinos in France, 104. 
Meat and Wool, proportion of, between 

sheep of different ages and sexes, 

433 et seq. 
Medicines, mode of introducing into the 

stomach of sheep, 299. 
explanation of medical terms used, 343, 

344. 
list of medicines used in diseases of 

sheep, 383, 392. 
Merino, American, introduced into United 

States, 22. 
little noticed before 1807, 24. 
prices of wool from 1807 to 1824, 24. 
prices of sheep from 1807 to 1815, 24. 
circumstances affecting prices of wool, 

24. 
established as a variety in United 

States, 27. 
the mixed Leonese or Jarvis family, 

27.2a 
the Infantado or Atwood family, 28. 
Mr. Hammond, founder of the im- 
proved Infantados, 29, 30. 
the improved Paular or Rich family, 

30-33. 
other American Merino families, 33. 
prices of, in winter of 1862-63, 69 note, 
proper form and size of, 69. 
the different families should not be 

merged, 69, 70, 
proper qualities of skin of, 70. 
proper amount of folds or wrinkles, 70. 
characteristics to be sought in the 

fleece, 71, 72. 
spotted and black Merinos, etc., 72 

note, 
the most profitable quality of wool and 

breed of sheep to propagate, 72, 73, 
evenness of the fleece, 73. 
trueness and soundness of wool, 74. 
pliancy and softness of wool, 74. 
style of wool, 75. 
length of wool, 75, 76. 
endures extremes of weather better 

than any other valuable breed, 86. 
is a better working sheep than the 

English, 87. 
effect of abundant food on, 88. 
will not endure wet soils, 88, 
the great capacity of, for herding, 8! 
average production of wool per head 

in large flocks, 98. 
annual value of manure of, 99. 
its manure far more valuable than that 

of the horse or cow, 99 note, 
annual value of lambs, 99. 
comparative profits of, in different 

parts of the United States, 99. 
full bloods as cheaply raised as grades, 

99. 
profits of growing on lands worth $50 

per acre, 100. 



Merino, American, breeding in-and-in of 
the improved Infantados, 120. 

pedigrees of celebrated improved In- 
fantados, 121, 122. 

origin of the improved Paulars, 128 
note. 

effect of crossing American Merinos 
with coarse breeds — ( see Cross- 
Breeding.) 

effect of crossing different families of 
Merinos — (see Cross-Breeding.) 

origin of improved Infantados, 412- 
416. 

leading early animals of Mr. Ham- 
mond's flock, 412-416. 

origin of improved Paulars, 416-418. 

leading early animals of the family, 
41fr418. 

victorious at World's Fair at Ham- 
burg, 438. 
Merino, French, origin of, 18, 19. 

stock from which the Kambouillet 
flock sprung, 19. 

weight of fleece given by Lasteyrie, 
etc., 19, 20. 

general description of, by Trimmer, in 
1827, 19. 

introduced into the United States by 
D. C. Collins, 35. 

A. B. Allen, description of them, 35. 

imported by John A. Taintor, 36. 

weight of fleeces of this family, given 
by J. D. Patterson, 36. 

character of the variety, 36, 37. 

crossed with American Merinos, 129. 
Merino, Saxon, origin of, 20. 

management of, in Germany, 20. 

its characteristics of carcass and fleece, 
20. 

introduced into United States in 1824, 
25. 

circumstances affecting its success in 
United States, 25, 26. 

supercedes the Spanish, and in turn 
superceded by them, 25. 

cut of Von Thaer's Saxon ram, 26. 
Merino, Silesian, introduced into the 
United States, 39. 

description of them by Mr. Chamber- 
lain, 39-42. 

cut of a group of Mr. Chamberlain's 
ewes, 41. 

have been closely bred in-and-in, 120. 

effect of the original cross from which 
the family was established, 128, 129. 
Merino, Spanish, origin of, 13, 125 note. 

provincial varieties of, in Spain, 13. 

cabanas, or families of, in Spain, 13, 14. 

migrations of, in Spain, 13. 

general treatment of, in Spain, and 
effects, 13, 14. 

its wool, character and color, 15, 16. 

its wool, compared with that of Ameri- 
can Merino, 15. 

fineness and felting properties of its 
wool, 16. 

cut illustrating appearance of wool, 16. 

best families of, lost to Spain, 16, 17. 

the character of the present flocks Of 
Spain, 17, 18. 



450 



INDEX. 



Merino, Spanish, the earlier families Intro- 
duced into the United States by dif- 
ferent persons, 22, 23. 
black ones imported, 23. 
the different families bred in-and-in, 
lilt, 120. 

Messenger, Thos., imports Hampshire 
Downs into the United States, 61. 

Miguel inoculates for small pox, 350. 

Miller, George, imports Shropshires into 
Canada West, 65. 

Mississippi, sheep husbandry in, 248 et seq. 

Mixed feeds for sheep, 243-245. 

Morrell, L. A., author of American Shep- 
herd, 269. 
cited in regard to sheep diseases, 269, 
301, 311. 

Myrtle & Ackerson, length of their Me- 
rino wool, 76. 



N 



Nankin sheep in the United States, 54. 
Native sheep of the United States, 43. 
Neck, swellings of, 152, 154, 380. 
Needham, Col. Daniel, attends World's Fair 

as Commissioner of Vermont, 438. 
challenges the breeders of Europe, 438. 
Negretti Merinos, 14, 129. 

weight of fleeces of flock of King of 

England, 16. 
Nelson, Capt. Allison, his account of Mex- 
ican sheep dogs, 405. 
New Oxfordshire sheep imported into the 

United States, 51. 
debcribed by L. Smith, a breeder of 

them, 51. 
Nomadic shepherds on the prairies, 250. 
Numann, Prof. A., on treatment of small 

pox, 348, 349. 
Nutritive equivalents in sheep feed, 334 

et seq. 
table of nutritive equivalents, 235. 







Ohio, destruction of sheep in, by dogs, 393, 

396. 
Oil in wool— (see Yolk.) 
Old Robinson Kam, his history and quali- 
ties, 113. 
his pedigree, 128 note, 
his pedigree and qualities, 416-418. 
Opthalmia, 272, 379. 
Orton, Mr., his theory of breeding, 107 et 

seq. 
Otter sheep, 43. 
Oxfordshire Downs, described by Mr. 
Howard, 65. 
introduced into United States, 66. 
description of Mr. Fay's sheep, 66, 67 



Paget, Mr., his account of Hungarian 

sheep dogs, 400. 
Palsy, 283. 
Pampering sheep, effects of, 196, 197. 



Parturient fever, 331-337. 
Patterson, John D., describes French Me- 
rinos, 36. 
Paular Merinos, 14. 

improved in United States, 32, 33, 119. 
Pawlett, T. E., his essay on management 
of sheep, 199. 
his views on fall feeding of lambs, 199. 
his experiments in winter feeding, 
418-425. 

Pea-haulm as sheep feed, 235, 245. 
Pedigree, mode of keeping, 121. 
Persian sheep in United States, 54. 
Peters, Theodore 0., opens a Wool Depot 
in 1847, 177. 
his letter in regard to sheep diseases, 

262. 
his account of sheep dogs, 407, 409. 
Petri, his measurements, etc., of Spanish 

sheep, 14 
Pining, 312. 
Pinning, 151. 

of young lambs, how treated, 161. 
Pleurisy, 326, 327. 
Plenritis, 326, 327. 
Pneumonia, 325, 379. 
Poisons, 301, 302. 
Porter, Commodore, imports Broad-Tailed 

sheep into United States, 53. 
Powell, John Hare, breeds Tunisian 
Mountain sheep, 53. 
imports South Downs into United 

States, 57. 
his account of Spanish sheep dogs, 400. 
Prairie Sheep Husbandry, 948-260. 

comparative climate of Prairie States, 

248. 
great advantages for wool growing in, 

249. 
nomadic shepherds in, 250. 
acclimation of sheep in, 250. 
profits of wool growing in, over East- 
ern States, 251. 
wool the most profitable staple in, 251 

and note, 
management of sheep in summer in, 253 
lambing in prairie flocks, 252, 253. 
folds and dogs, 253. 
stables, 253. 
herding, 254. 
washing, 254. 
shearing, 254. 

storing and selling wool, 254. 
ticks on sheep, 255. 
prairie diseases, 255, 256. 
feeding salt, 256. 
weaning lambs, 256. 
prairie management in winter, 256. 
winter feed, 258, 259. 
sheds or stables, 259. 
water, 260. 

location of sheep establishment, 260. 
Pregnancy, proper treatment during, 221- 

228, 336. 
Price, Mr., cited in regard to sheep dis- 
eases, 262. 
Puerperal Fever— (see Parturient Fever.) 
Pulse, its frequency in healthy sheep, 314. 

where it is felt, 314. 
Purging— (see Diarrhea, Dysentery.) 



INDEX. 



451 



R 



Rabies, 283, 290. 

Racks for feeding sheep, 299-231. 
cut of slatted box rack, 229. 
cut of wall racks, 2:30. 
cut of end view of same, 231. 
Ram, influence of, in breeding, 108-115. 
oftenest gives the form to progeny, 109, 

110. 
points to be regarded in, 111, 112. 
capacity of, to procreate, 113, 209. 
proper size of, 114. 
horns of, require attention, 189. 
confinement of, 190. 
training of, 191. 

treatment of, when vicious, 191. 
selecting ewes for, 205. 
modes of coupling, 206, 207. 
management of, during coupling, 207- 

209. 
causes which sometimes render them 

unsure stock-getters, 207 and note, 
when they require mechanical assist- 
ance, 207 note, 
preparation of, for coupling season, 

208. 
feed inclosures, etc., 208. 
Reaumur's experiments, showing how 
feeds increase animal products, 236, 
238. 
Red Water, 304. 
Registration of sheep, 180-182. 

form of a register, 181. 
Regularity in feeding, importance of, 246, 

247. 
Remelee, Loyal C, crosses the Paular 
and Infantado sheep, 128 note, 
his connection with the origin of the 
improved Paular, 417. 
Rheumatism, 155, 156, 379. 

in lambs, 155, 156. 

Rich, Charles, origin of his Paular flock of 

Merinos, 30-33. 

John T. succeeds to the flock of his 

father, 31. 
Messrs. John T. and Virtulan, succeed 
to the flock of John T. Rich, Sen., 31, 
32. 
the course of breeding and character of 

the Rich flock, 32, 33, 119. 
cut of a ewe bred by the Messrs. Rich, 

31. 
effect of a dip of other blood on the 
flock, 128 and note. 
Rickets, the 380. 
Rives, William C, imports Shropshire 

sheep into United States, 66. 
Robinson, Erastus, breeds the " Old Rob- 
inson Ram," 128 note, 
originates the "Robinson Sheep" of 

Vermont, 128 note. 
his connection with the origin of the 
improved Paulars, 416, 418. 
Robinson Ram, the old, his pedigree, 416- 

418. 
Roots, value of, for fattening sheep, 418, et 

seq. 
Rot, the, -372-378. 



Rotch, Francis, his flock of early American 

Merinos, 33. 
cut of one of his ewes, illustrating 

those early Merinos, 34. 
imports South Downs into the United 

States, 57. 
his account of a Spanish Sheep Dog, 

398. 



s 



Sacking wool, 177. 

Salt marshes healthy for sheep, 88. 

Salt necessary to sheep in summer, 192. 

necessary in winter, 247. 
Sanford, William R., his account of the 
present Merinos in Spain, 18. 
his remedy for stretches, 310. 
his purchases of sheep, 412, 414. 
Saxton, Nelson A., his remedy for stretches, 

310. 
Scab, the, 338-343. 

cut of the acarus, 339. 
erysipelatous, 344. 
Scotch Black - faced sheep — (see Black - 

Scotch sheep.) 
Scours — (see Diarrhea.) 
Scrofula, 378, 380. 

Seaman, Isaac, his prize essay on parturi- 
ent fever, 331, 335. 
Selection— (see Drafting and Selection.) 
Shade in pastures of much utility, 212. 
Shearing sheep, mode of performing, 170- 
172. 
stubble shearing and trimming, 172. 
shearing lambs and shearing sheep 
semi-annually, 172. 
Sheds temporary and permanent, for sheep, 

211-214. 
Sheep, the most profitable animals to de- 
pasture our cheap lands, 96. 
necessary to good farming on grain 

farms, 96. 
more profitable than dairy cows in por- 
tions of New York, 97. 
the best cleaners of new lands, 97. 
best adapted to the pecuniary means 
of a portion of our rural population, 
97. 
their management simple and easily 

learned, 97. 
they never die in debt to man, 97. 
catching and handling, mode of, 139- 

140. 
turning out to grass, 141. 
tagging, how performed, 141. 
cut illustrative of tagging, 141. 
necessity of eradicating burs from 

pastures, 142. 
lambing time, place for and assistance 

in, 142-144. 
spring management of, 139-162. 
summer management of, 163-197. 
administering medicines to when in 

health, 19.3. 
housing of in summer, 195. 
pampering of, 196. 
fall management of, 198-210. 
former mode of fall feeding, 202, 203. 



452 



INDEX. 



Sheep, dividing flocks for winter, 209. 

its want of providence in protecting 

its young, 213 and note, 
winter management of, 211-247. 
confinement to yards and dry feed, 221- 

228. 
consumption of food by, in winter, 233. 
comparative value of different fodders 

for, 233-245, 418-125. 
the fattening of in winter, 245, 246. 
management of, on the prairies — (see 

Prairie Sheep Husbandry.) 
their ready acclimation on the prairies, 

250. 
their non-deterioration on prairies, 251. 
diseases of— (see Diseases of Sheep.) 
diseases of, comparatively few in the 

United States, 261, 262. 
diseases of a low type in the United 

States, 262,263. 
anatomy — (see Anatomy of Sheep.) 
longevity of, 268. 
mode of administering medicines to, 

299. 
medicines used in diseases of, 384-392. 
destruction by dogs, 393-396. 
amount of food consumed by 418 etseq 
Mr. Pawlet's experiments in fattening, 

418-425. 
number of in United States, 426. 
proportion of wool to meat in, 433. 
Sheep Husbandry on the Prairies — (see 

Prairie Sheep Husbandry.) 
Shelters for sheep, 211, 219. 
Shropshire Downs, described by Professor 

Wilson, 61-63. 
Mr. Spooncr's account of their origin, 

63. 
Mr. Howard describes their origin and 

character, 63, 64. 
cut of Judge Chaffee's Shropshire ram 

Lion, 62. 
cut of Judge Chaffee's Shropshire ewe 

Nancy, 65. 
Judge Chaffee's description of his 

sheep, 65. 
Sibbald, W. C, on parturient fever. 337. 
Silesian Merinos — (see Merinos Silesian.) 
Simonds, Prof., his remedy for scab, 343. 
Skin, proper qualities of, in the Merino, 70. 

diseases of, unnamed ones, 344, 345. 
Small-pox, 345, 353. 

its introduction into America to be 

guarded against, 351, 352. 
Smith, Robert, his prize essay on Manage- 
ment of sheep, 198. 
his views in respect to fall feeding 

lambs, 198, 199. 
his experiments in feeding sheep, 239- 

262. 
his remedy for diarrhea and dysentery, 

308, 309. 
his remedy for scab, 342, 343. 
his remedy for hoof- rot, 364, 365. 
Smith's Island sheep, 43. 
Soils to be regarded in selecting a breed of 

sheep, 88. 
the long - wooled sheep preferable on 

wet soils, 88. 
the Merino cannot endure wet soils, 88 



Soils, effect of low, flat, moist and very rich 
soils on sheep, 88. 
effect of light, sandy soils, 89. 
kind of, adapted to Merino and Down 
sheep, 89. 
Sore face, 269-271. 

Sotham, William n., his account of Mr. 
Dunn's wethers, 44. 
imports Cotswold sheep in 1840 with 
Mr. Corning, 48. 
South Downs, described by Professor Wil- 
son, 65-57. 
imported into the United States by 

Mr. Powell, 57. 
imported by Rotch, 57. 
imported by Mr. Thorne, of New York, 
Mr. Alexander, of Kentucky, and 
Mr. Taylor, of New Jersey, 58. 
Mr. Thorne describes his mode of man- 
aging them, 58, 59. 
cut of Mr. Thome's ram Archbishop, 

50. 
cut of two of his ewes, 57. 
annual value of manure in England, 
98. 
Spooner, William, describes the Cotswold 
sheep, 49. 
describes the improved Cheviots, 52, 

63. 
describes origin and blood of Hamp- 
shire Downs, 60, 61. 
his account of the origin of the Shrop- 
shire sheep, 63. 
his estimate of the value of sheep 

manure, 98, 99. 
his theory of hereditary transmission, 

107. 
cited in regard to diseases of sheep, 
277, 280, 281, 300, 302, 304, 307, 311, 
312, 326, 329, 330, 342, 347, 364, 370, 
372, 378, 381, 382, 387, 390. 
Sprains, 382. 

Spring management of sheep, — (see Man- 
agement of sheep in spring.) 
Stables for sheep, — (see Barns.) 
Stells for sheep, 212. 
Stevenson, Mr., cited in regard to diseases 

of sheep, 344. 
Stickney, Tyler, his connection with, the 
improved Paulars, 128 note, 417, 418. 
St. John's-Wort injurious to sheep, 269- 
271. 
popular opinions respecting, 270. 
Stone, Frederick William, of Canada West, 
a distinguished breeder of Cotswold 
sheep, 48, 49. 
Storms after shearing, effect on sheep, 186. 
Strains, — (see Bruises and Strains.) 
Stretches, 310— (see Colic.) 
Straw, as sheep leed, 235, 236, 245. 
Summer management of sheep, — (see 

Management of sheep in summer.) 
Sun-Scald, how produced, 186. 
Swamps, effect of on sheep, — (see Marsh- 
es.) 
Sweepstakes, Mr. Hammond's ram, — (see 

Hammond, Edwin.) 
Sweet, H. D. L., on comparative weight of 

wool and bodies of sheep, 433. 
Swelled Head, 368. 



INDEX. 



453 



Swelled Lips, 271. 
Swelled Neck, 152, 154, 380. 

T 

Tagging, how performed, 141. 

cut, illustrative of, 141. 
Taintor, John A., his account of present 
Merinos of Spain, 17. 
imports French Merinos into United 

States, 36. 
description of his Merinos, 36. 
Tariffs of the United States, effects of dif- 
ferent ones on production, price, etc., 
of wool, 25, 26. 
those in force from 1824 to 1861, 92-94 
Teats, closed ones, how opened, 157. 
Teeth, cutting of the, 150. 
described, 266. 

the most reliable test of age, 266, 267. 
to be extracted sometimes, 267. 
Tessier, cited in regard to sheep diseases. 

238, 318. 

Tetanus, 281, 282. 

Texas, adaptation of to wool growing, 248, 

et seq. 

climate of, 248, 249. 

mean temperature at New Braunfels, 

249. 
mean temperature at Austin, 249. 
climate of, 428, et seq. 
northers of, 429, 430. 
seasons and crops, and their vicissi- 
tudes, 431, 432. 
Thomiere, inoculates for small-pox, 350, 
Thorne, Samuel, imports South Down 
sheep, 58. 
describes his mode of managing them, 

58, 59. 
his crosses to procure lambs for the 

butcher, 134, 135 note, 
his account of parturient fever in his 
flock, 334, 335. 
Ticks, effects of on sheep, 187. 

how exterminated from flocks, 187-189. 

cut of dipping box, 187. 

Toe-nippers, cut of, 169. 

Torry, Dr., his account of St. John's-Wort, 

269. 
Travel-sore, 355. 

Treatment of ewe after lambing, 156, 157. 
Trees in pastures, 212. 
Trimmer, Mr., his description of French 
Merinos in 1827, 19. 
his description of Spanish sheep dogs, 
399, 400. 
Tunisian Mountain sheep introduced into 
Pennsylvania, 53. 
bred and commended by John Hare 
Powell, 53. 
Turnips as sheep feed, 221, 235, 239-243. 
" 21 per cent," the ram so called, 15. 
length of his wool, 76. 
his qualities as a sire, 109. 
remarkable cross between him and 

Saxon ewes, 130, and note, 
his pedigree, 415. 



u 

Udder, inflamed, 157, 330. 
opening closed teats, 157. 



Vaccination for small-pox, 350. 
Valois inoculates for small-pox, 349. 
Variola Ovina — (see Small Pox.) 
Vegetation, kind of, required by different 

breeds of sheep, 86, 87. 
Vermont, Merino sheep breeders of, 27-30. 
Von Thaer, Albert, cut of his Saxon ram, 
26. 
his mode of numbering sheep, 183. 

w 

Walker, Mr., his theory of hereditary 

transmission, 107 et seq. 
Walz M., his description of scab, 388. 
Washing sheep, 163, 164. 

its utility considered, 164-168. 
Water for sheep, its utility in summer, 194. 
its necessity in winter, 231. 
modes of watering in winter, 231-233. 
Water in pastures highly beneficial, 194. 

indispensable in winter, 232. 
Weaning lambs, age and mode, 193. 
feeding after weaning, 198-201. 
English mode of fall-feeding, 198, 199. 
Webb, Jonas, his success in breeding 

South Down Sheep, 57 et seq. 
Wells, Thomas, describes symptoms of 

small-pox, 347. 
White, Henry G., imports Cotswold Sheep 
into United States, 49. 
cut of his Cotswold ram Pilgrim, 48. 
cut of his Cotswold ewe Lady Gay, 50. 
an account of his sheep, 49. 
Wilcox, Asahel F., pedigree of his " Thou- 
sand Dollar Ram,'' 415. 
Wild-fire, 344. 

Wilson, Professor John, his description of 
Leicester sheep, 45-47. 
his description of South Down Sheep, 

55. 
his description of the Hampshire 
Downs, 59, 60, 61, 63. 
Womb, inversion of, 145, 330. 
Wool, characteristics of Spanish, 15, 16. 
fineness and felting property of Span- 
ish, 16. 
felting property of Saxon, 16. 
characteristics of Saxon fleeces, 20. 
proper degree of fineness of in the 

American Merino, 72, 73. 
that of the Merino sometimes black, 72 

note, 
evenness of, the term defined, 73. 
trueness and soundness of, 74. 
pliancy and softness of, 74. 
style of, 75. 
length of, 75. 
yolk in (see Yolk.) 
oil, grease, and gum in, (see Yolk.) 
prices of in United States from 1800 to 
1861, 91-94. 



454 



INDEX. 



Wool, tabic of average quarterly prices 

from 1824 to 1861, 92-94. 
prices medium have never sunk below 

cost of production, 94. 
prices have been generally remunera- 
tive, 94. 
annual exports and imports of from 

1840 to 1861, 95, 96. 
the domestic supply has never met the 

demand, 96. 
cost of producing in New York and 

New England, 97. 
cost of producing in the South and 

South-west, 98. 
cost of producing in the Western and 

North-western States, 98. 
cost of producing in intermediate situ 

ations, 98. 
average production of per head by 

Merinos in large flocks, 98. 
comparative profit of Producing in 

different parts of the United States, 

99. 
profits of producing on land worth $50 

per acre, 100. 
washing of on the back, 163, 164. 
shearing, mode of, 170-172. 
doing up, mode of, 173-175. 
frauds in doing up, 175. 
storing wool, 176. 
place for selling wool, 177. 
wool depots and commission stores, 

177. 
sacking wool, 177. 
cost of getting to market, 251. 
product of, in the United States in 

1860, 426. 
proportion to meat in sheep of different 

ages, sexes and sizes, 433 et seq. 
Woolens, exports and imports of, from 

1840 to 1S61, 95. 
Wooster, Abel J., describes the " Wooster 

Earn," 113 note. 
Wooster Ram described, 113 and note. 
Worms, 312. 

Wounds, (see Diseases and Wounds.) 
cuts, 380. 



Wounds, lacerated and contused wounds 
381. 
punctured wounds, 381. 
dog bites, 381. 
poisoned wounds, 381. 
Wright, Loyal C, his ram, 113. 
Wright, M. W. C, first crosses the Paular 
and Infantado Sheep in Vermont, 
128 note, 
originates the Paular and Infantado 

cross, 416. 
his statements, 418. 
Wright, Gov., of Dadiana, at World's Fair, 

438. 
Wrinkles, (see Folds.) 



Yards for sheep (see Barns.) 

size, situation of, etc., 220. 

littering yards, 220. 

confining sheep to them in winter, 221 
et seq. 
Yolk described, 77. 

chemical analysis of, 77. 

uses of, in wool, 77. 

proper amount and consistency of, 
78, 79. 

proper color of, 80, 81. 

artificial imitation of its color exter- 
nally, 81. 

artificial propagation and preservation 
of in fleece, 81. 
Youatt, William, discovers conformation 
of wool, 16. 

his testimony in favor of pure biood, 
131 note. 

in regard to sagacity and affection of 
sheep, 213. 

in regard to defects of the Merino, 223 
note. 

cited in regard to diseases of sheep, 
268, 274, 275, 278, 279, 280, 282, 2«3, 
291, 300, 301, 306, 309, 314, 315, 317, 
318, 326, 327, 329, 330, 336, 339, 340, 
342, 344, 345, 347, 350, 354, 356, 357, 
363, 364, 373, 385, 389. 





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